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THE  EVENING  POST 


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William   Cullen   Bryant 
Associate    Editor,    1826-1829,    Editor-in-Chief,    1829-1878 

(Two  hitherto  unpublished  portraits) 


>    1   ,        ■» ,  ■) 


THE  EVENING  POST 

A  Century  of  Journalism 


ALLAN  NEVINS 


The  journalists  are  now  the  true  kings  and  clergy;  henceforth 
historians,  unless  they  are  fools,  must  write  not  of  Bourbon  dynas- 
ties, and  Tudors,  and  Hapsburgs;  but  of  stamped,  broadsheet 
dynasties,  and  quite  new  successive  names,  according  as  this  or  the 
other  able  editor,  or  combination  of  able  editors,  gains  tiie  world's 
ear. — Sartor  Resartus, 


BONI  AND  LIVERIGHT 

Publishers      :      New  York 


TO  MY  MOTHER 


Copyright,  1922,  by 

BONI  AND  LiVERIGHT,   InC. 
PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED   STATES   OF   AMERICA 


PREFACE 

This  volume  took  its  origin  in  the  writer's  belief  that 
a  history  of  the  Evening  Post  would  be  interesting  not 
merely  as  that  of  one  of  the  world's  greatest  newspapers, 
but  as  throwing  light  on  the  whole  course  of  metropolitan 
journalism  in  America  since  1800,  and  upon  some  im- 
portant parts  of  local  and  national  history.  In  a  book 
of  this  kind  it  is  necessary  to  steer  between  Scylla  and 
Charybdis.  If  the  volume  were  confined  to  mere  office- 
history,  it  would  interest  few;  while  a  review  of  all  the 
newspaper's  editorial  opinions  and  all  the  interesting 
news  it  has  printed  would  be  a  review  of  the  greater  part 
of  what  has  happened  in  the  nineteenth  century  and  since. 
The  problem  has  been  to  avoid  narrowness  on  the  one 
hand,  padding  on  the  other.  The  author  has  tried  to 
select  the  most  important,  interesting,  and  illuminating 
aspects  and  episodes  of  the  newspaper's  history,  and  to 
treat  them  with  a  careful  regard  for  perspective. 

The  decision  to  include  no  footnote  references  to 
authorities  in  a  volume  of  this  character  probably  requires 
no  defense.  In  a  great  majority  of  instances  the  text  itself 
indicates  the  authority.  When  an  utterance  of  the  Eve- 
ning Post  on  the  Dred  Scott  decision  is  quoted,  it  would 
assuredly  be  impertinent  to  quote  the  exact  date.  The 
author  wishes  to  say  that  he  has  been  at  pains  to  ascribe 
no  bit  of  writing  to  a  particular  editor  without  making 
sure  that  he  actually  wrote  it.  When  he  names  Bryant 
as  the  writer  of  a  certain  passage,  he  does  so  on  the 
authority  of  the  Bryant  papers,  or  the  Parke  Godwin 
papers,  or  one  of  the  lives  of  Bryant,  or  of  indisputable 
internal  evidence.  After  188 1  a  careful  record  of  the 
writers  of  the  most  important  Evening  Post  editorials 
was  kept  in  the  files  of  the  Nation. 

The  author  wishes  to  thank  the  heirs  of  William  CuUen 
Bryant,    Parke    Godwin,    John    Bigelow,    Carl   Schurz, 


VI 


PREFACE 


Horace  White,  Henry  Villard,  and  E.  L.  Godkin  for 
giving  him  access  to  a  wealth  of  family  papers.  Im- 
portant manuscript  material  bearing  upon  William  Cole- 
man was  furnished  by  James  Melvin  Lee  and  Mary  P. 
Wells  Smith.  He  is  under  a  heavy  debt  to  Mr.  Robert 
Bridges,  editor  of  Scribner^s;  Mr.  Norman  Hapgood, 
editor  of  Hearst^s  International  Magazine;  Mr.  H.  J. 
Wright,  editor  of  the  Globe;  Mr.  Rollo  Ogden,  associate 
editor  of  the  New  York  Times;  Mr.  O.  G.  Villard,  editor 
of  the  Nation;  Mr.  Watson  R.  Sperry,  of  the  Hartford 
Courant;  Mr.  Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop,  Mr.  Lincoln  Stef- 
fens,  Mr.  R.  R.  Bowker,  and  Mr.  Frederic  Bancroft; 
the  heirs  of  Charles  Nordhoff  and  Charlton  M.  Lewis; 
and  Mr.  J.  Ranken  Towse,  Mr.  William  Hazen,  and 
Mr.  Henry  T.  Finck  of  the  Evening  Post,  for  informa- 
tion and  assistance.  He  is  similarly  obliged  to  the 
Library  of  Congress  for  aid  in  examining  the  papers  of 
Alexander  Hamilton  and  Carl  Schurz.  Portions  of  the 
manuscript  were  kindly  read  by  Mr.  Edwin  F.  Gay,  presi- 
dent of  the  Evening  Post,  who  has  given  constant  advice 
and  encouragement,  Mr.  Rollo  Ogden,  and  Mr.  Simeon 
Strunsky;  and  part  of  the  proofs  by  Mr.  Donald  Scott, 
Mr.  O.  G.  Villard,  and  Mr.  H.  J.  Wright. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     Hamilton  and  the  Founding  of  the 

"Evening  Post" 9 

II.     The  "Evening  Post"  as  Leader  of 

THE  Federalist  Press    ....       35 

III.  The  City  and  the  "Evening  Post's" 

Place  in  It 63 

IV.  Literature  and  Drama  in  the  Early 

"Evening  Post" 96 

V.     Bryant  Becomes  Editor    .      .      .      .     121 

VI.  William  Leggett  Acting  Editor  :  De- 
pression, Rivalry,  and  Threat- 
ened Ruin 139 

VII.    The  Rise  of  the  Slavery  Question: 

THE  Mexican  War 166 

VIII.     New  York  Becomes  a  Metropolis: 

Central  Park 192 

""IX.     Literary  Aspects  of  Bryant's  News- 
paper, 1 830-1 855 207 

X.     John  Bigelow  as  an  Editor  of  the 

"Evening  Post" 228 

XI.     Heated  Politics  Before  the  Civil 

War 242 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XII.     The  New  York  Press  and  Southern 

Secession 267 

XIII.  The  Critical  Days  of  the  Civil  War     284 

XIV.  Reconstruction  and  Impeachment  .     326 

XV.     Bryant  at  the  Height  of  His  Fame 

as  Editor 338 

XVI.     Apartment  Houses  Rise  and  Tweed 

Falls 364 

XVII.     Independence  in  Politics  :  the  Elec- 
tions of '72  and '76 389 

XVIII.     Two  Rebel  Literary  Editors     .      . .      406 

XIX.     Warfare  Within  the  Office  :  Parke 

Godwin's  Editorship     ....      420 

XX.     The  Villard  Purchase  :  Carl  Schurz 

Editor-in-Chief        438 

XXI.     GoDKiN,  THE  Mugwump  Movement, 

AND  Grover  Cleveland's  Career  .     458 

XXII.     Godkin's    War    Without    Quarter 

Upon  Tammany 476 

XXIII.  Opposing  the  Spanish  War  and  Sil- 

ver Craze     .......     496 

XXIV.  Characteristics  of  a  Fighting  Edi- 

tor: E.  L.  Godkin     519 

XXV.     News,  Literature,   Music,  and 

Drama  18  80- 1900       ....         546 

XXVI.     Horace  White,  Rollo  Ogden,  and 

THE  "Evening  Post"  Since  1900    .      568 

Index 581 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

William  CuUen  Bryant Frontispiece 

Associate  Editor^  1 826-1 829,  Editor-in-Chief j 
1829-1878 

FACING 
PAGE 

Alexander  Hamilton 26 

Chief  Founder  of  the  "Evening  Post'' 

William  Coleman 102 

Editor-in-Chief,  1 801 -1 829 

John  Bigelow 264 

Associate  Editor,  1 849-1 860 

Parke  Godwin 440 

Editor-in-Chief,  1878- 1 88 1 

Henry  Villard 440 

Owner,  1881-1900      . 

Carl  Schurz 440 

Editor-in-Chief,    1 881 -1883 

Horace  White 440 

Associate  Editor,  188 1 -1 899,  Editor-in-Chief, 
1900-1903 

E.  L.  Godkin 494 

Associate  Editor,  1 881- 1883,  Editor-in-Chief, 
1883-1899 

Rollo  Ogden 548 

Editor-in-Chief,  1903- 1 920 

Editorial  Council,   1922 570 


CHAPTER  ONE 


HAMILTON  AND  THE  FOUNDING  OF  THE  "EVENING  POST" 


/ 


Of  all  the  newspapers  established  as  party  organs  in 
the  time  when  Federalists  and  Democrats  were  struggling 
for  control  of  the  government  of  the  infant  republic,  but 
one  important  journal  survives.  It  is  the  oldest  daily 
in  the  larger  American  cities  which  has  kept  its  name 
intact.  The  Aurora,  the  Centinel,  the  American  Citizen, 
Porcupine^s  Gazette,  whose  pages  the  generation  of 
Washington  and  Adams,  Jefferson  and  Burr,  scanned  so 
carefully,  are  mere  historical  shades;  but  the  Evening 
Post,  founded  in  1801  by  Alexander  Hamilton  and  a 
group  of  intimate  political  lieutenants,  for  the  expression 
of  Hamilton's  views,  remains  a  living  link  between  that 
day  of  national  beginnings  and  our  own.  ^ 

The  spring  of  1801,  when  plans  were  laid  for  issuing 
the  Evening  Post,  was  the  blackest  season  the  Federalists 
of  New  York  had  yet  known.  Jefferson  was  inaugurated 
as  President  on  March  4,  and  the  upper  as  well  as  the 
lower  branch  of  Congress  had  now  become  Democratic. 
In  April  the  State  election  was  held,  and  the  ticket  headed 
by  gouty  old  George  Clinton  won  a  sweeping  victory 
over  the  Federalists,  so  that  at  Albany  the  Democrats 
took  complete  control;  the  Governorship,  Legislature, 
and  Council  of  Appointment  were  theirs.  Many  Federal- 
ists sincerely  believed  that  the  nation  and  State  had  been 
put  upon  the  road  to  ruin.  They  were  convinced  that 
the  party  of  Washington,  Hamilton,  and  Adams,  which 
had  built  up  a  vigorous  republic  out  of  a  ramshackle 
Confederation,  was  the  only  party  of  construction;  and 
that  Democracy  meant  ruin  to  the  public  credit,  aggres- 
sions by  the  States  upon  a  weak  central  government,  and 
national   disintegration.      Hamilton   wrote   Gouverneur 

9 


12  THE  EVENING  POST 

Clerkship  of  the  Circuit  Court  whose  jurisdiction  covered 
the  city  was  taken  from  William  Coleman  and  given  to 
John  McKesson.  A  majority  of  the  people  of  the  city 
were  Federalists,  and  they  watched  all  these  transfers 
with  pain. 
"^  The  local  leaders,  and  especially  Hamilton,  had  for 
some  time  been  aware  that  they  lacked  an  adequate 
newspaper  organ.  Three  city  journals,  the  Daily  Adver- 
tiser, and  the  Daily  Gazette,  both  morning  publications, 
and  the  Commercial  Advertiser,  an  evening  paper, 
were  Federalist  in  sympathy.  But  Snowden's  Daily 
Advertiser,  and  Lang's  Gazette  were  almost  exclusively 
given  up  to  commercial  news;  and  while  E.  Belden's 
Commercial  Advertiser,  which  still  lives  as  the  Globe, 
devoted  some  attention  to  politics,  it  lacked  an  able 
editor  to  write  controversial  articles.  As  the  chief 
Democratic  sheet  remarked,  "it  is  too  drowsy  to  be 
of  service  in  any  cause;  it  is  a  powerful  opiate."  This 
Democratic  sheet  was  the  American  Citizen,  edited 
by  the  then  noted  English  refugee  and  radical,  James 
Cheetham.  He  was  a  slashing  and  fearless  advocate  of 
Jeffersonian  principles,  who  daily  filled  from  one  to  two 
columns  with  matter  that  set  all  the  grocery  and  hotel 
knots  talking.  Some  one  as  vigorous,  but  of  better 
education  and  taste — Cheetham  had  once  been  a  hatter 
— was  needed  to  expound  Hamiltonian  doctrines. 

It  was  hoped  that  this  new  editor  and  journal  could 

give  leadership  and  tone  to  the  whole  Federalist  press, 

^or  a   sad  lack  of  vigor  was  evident  from   Maine  to 

I  Charleston.     The  leading  Federalist  newspapers  of  the 

I  time,  Benjamin  Russell's  Columbian  Centinel  in  Boston, 

the   Courant  in  Hartford,  the   Gazette  of  the   United 

States    in    Philadelphia,    and    the    Baltimore    Federal 

Gazette,   did   not   fully   meet   the   wishes   of   energetic 

^federalists.      Their   conductors   did  not   compare  with 

the  chief  Democratic  editors :  James  T.  Callender,  whom 

Adams  had  thrown  into  jail;  Thomas  Paine;  B.  F.  Bache, 

Franklin's  grandson ;  Philip  Freneau,  and  William  Duane. 

Some  agency  was  needed  to  rouse  them.     They  should 


FOUNDING  THE  EVENING  POST         13 

be  helped  with  purse  and  pen,  wrote  John  Nicholas,  a 
leading  Virginia  Federalist,  to  Hamilton.  "They  seldom 
republish  from  each  other,  while  on  the  other  hand  their 
antagonists  never  get  hold  of  anything,  however  trivial 
in  reality,  but  they  make  it  ring  through  all  their  papers 
from  one  end  of  the  continent  to  the  other."  In  the 
summer  of  1 800  Hamilton  called  Oliver  Wolcott's  atten- 
tion to  libels  printed  by  the  Philadelphia  Aurora  upon 
prominent  Federalists,  and  asked  if  these  outrageous 
assaults  could  not  be  counteracted.  "We  may  regret  but 
we  can  not  now  prevent  the  mischief  which  these  false- 
hoods produce,"  replied  Wolcott. 

The  establishment  of  journals  for  party  purposes  had 
become,  in  the  dozen  years  since  the  Constitution  was 
ratified,  a  frequent  occurrence,  and  no  political  leader 
knew  more  of  the  process  than  Hamilton.  He  had  won 
his  college  education  in  New  York  by  a  striking  article 
in  a  St.  Kitts  newspaper.  No  one  needs  to  be  reminded 
how  in  the  Revolutionary  crisis,  when  a  stripling  in  Kings 
College,  he  had  attracted  notice  by  anonymous  contri- 
butions to  Holt's  Journal,  nor  how  in  the  equally 
important  crisis  of  1787-88  he  published  his  immortal 
"Federalist"  essays  in  the  Independent  Journal.  Samuel 
Loudon,  head  of  the  Independent  Journal,  used  to  wait 
in  Hamilton's  study  for  the  sheets  as  they  came  from  his 
pen.  To  support  Washington's  Administration,  Hamil- 
ton in  1789  encouraged  John  Fenno,  a  Boston  school- 
master of  literary  inclinations,  to  establish  the  Gazette 
of  the  United  States  at  the  seat  of  government;  and  in 
1793,  when  Fenno  appealed  to  Hamilton  for  $2,000  to 
save  the  journal  from  ruin,  the  latter  took  steps  to  raise 
the  sum,  making  himself  responsible  for  half  of  it.  Hamil- 
ton also  financially  assisted  William  Cobbett,  the  best 
journalist  of  his  time  in  England  or  America,  to  initiate 
his  newspaper  campaign  against  the  Democratic  haters  of 
England.  He,  Rufus  King,  and  others  in  New  York 
helped  provide  the  capital  with  which  Noah  Webster 
founded  the  Minerva  in  that  city  In  1793,  and  he  and 
King  together  wrote  for  it  a  series  of  papers,  signed 


14  THE  EVENING  POST 

"Camillus,"  upon  Jay's  Treaty.  If  Hamilton's  unsigned 
contributions  to  the  Federalist  press  from  1790  to  1800 
could  be  Identified,  they  would  form  an  Important 
addition  to  his  works. 

It  is  evident  from  the  published  and  unpublished 
papers  of  Hamilton  that  at  an  early  date  in  1801,  when 
he  was  devoting  all  his  spare  time  to  the  hopeless  State 
campaign,  he  was  giving  thought  to  the  problem  of 
improving  the  party  press.  He  wrote  Senator  Bayard 
of  Delaware  a  letter  upon  party  policy,  to  be  presented 
at  the  Federalist  caucus  In  Washington  on  April  20.  In 
it  he  gave  a  prominent  place  to  the  necessity  for  "the 
diffusion  of  Information,"  both  by  newspapers  and  by 
pamphlets.  He  added  that  "to  do  this  a  fund  must 
be  raised,"  and  proposed  forming  an  extensive  associa- 
tion, each  member  who  could  afford  it  pledging  himself 
to  contribute  $5  annually  for  eight  years  for  publicity. 
Hamilton's  fingers  whenever  he  was  in  a  tight  place 
always  itched  for  the  pen.  Noah  Webster  had  withdrawn 
from  the  Minerva  three  years  previous,  while  Fenno 
had  died  about  the  same  time,  leaving  the  Gazette  of  the 
United  States  to  a  son ;  so  that  Hamilton  could  no  longer 
feel  at  "home  In  these  journals. 

But  if  a  Hamiltonlan  organ  were  started,  who  should 
be  editor  ?  Fortunately,  this  question  was  easily  answered. 
To  the  party  motives  which  Hamilton,  Troup,  Wolcott, 
and  other  leading  Federalists  had  In  setting  up  such  a 
journal,  at  this  juncture  there  was  added  a  motive  of 
friendship  toward  an  aspirant  for  an  editorial  position. 
In  1798,  there  had  been  admitted  to  the  New  York  bar  a 
penniless  lawyer  of  thirty-two  from  Greenfield,  Massa- 
chusetts, named  WiUIam  Coleman.  He  had  come  with  a 
record  of  two  years'  service  in  the  Massachusetts  House, 
an  honorary  degree  from  Dartmouth  College,  and  warm 
recommendations  from  Robert  Treat  Paine,  a  signer  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  who  at  this  time  was  a 
judge  of  the  Massachusetts  Supreme  Court.  After  a 
brief  and  unprofitable  partnership  with  Aaron  Burr,  a 


FOUNDING  THE  EVENING  POST         15 

misstep  which  he  later  declared  he  should  regret  to  his 
dying  day,  Coleman  formed  a  partnership  with  John 
Wells,  a  brilliant  young  Federalist  attorney.  Wells  was 
just  the  man  to  draw  Coleman  into  intimacy  with  the 
Federalist  leaders.  He  was  a  graduate  of  Princeton,  a 
profound  student  of  the  law,  was  rated  by  good  judges 
one  of  the  three  or  four  best  speakers  of  the  city,  and 
was  a  member  of  the  "Friendly  Club,"  an  important 
literary  society.  Governor  John  Jay  offered  him  a 
Justiceship  of  the  Peace,  and  Hamilton  trusted  him  so 
much  that.  In  1802,  he  selected  him  to  edit  the  first  careful 
edition  of  The  Federalist,  for  which  Hamilton  himself 
critically  examined  and  revised  the  papers. 

Through  Wells,  in  1798-99  Coleman  came  to  know 
the  members  of  the  "Friendly  Club,"  including  W.  W. 
Woolsey,  the  novelist  Charles  Brockden  Brown,  the 
dramatist  William  Dunlap,  Anthony  Bleecker,  and 
James  Kent,  later  Chancellor.  He  had  already  met 
Hamilton,  on  the  latter's  trip  into  New  England  in  1796, 
and  now  he  fell  completely  under  the  great  man's  spell. 
In  his  later  life  he  dated  everything  from  the  beginning 
of  their  friendship.  The  two  had  much  In  common 
besides  their  political  views,  for  Coleman  possessed  a 
dashing  temper,  a  quick  mind,  and  a  ready  bonhomie.  In 
the  spring  of  1800,  there  took  place  in  New  York  the 
famous  trial  of  Levi  Weeks,  charged  with  murdering 
Gulielma  Sands,  a  young  girl,  and  throwing  her  body 
into  one  of  the  Manhattan  Company's  wells;  a  trial  in 
which  Hamilton  and  Burr  appeared  together  for  the 
defense,  and  saved  Weeks  from  conviction  by  a  mass  of 
circumstantial  evidence.  Coleman,  a  master  of  short- 
hand. Immediately  published  a  praiseworthy  report  of 
the  trial.  One  of  his  political  enemies  admitted  that  "it 
Is  everywhere  admired  for  Its  arrangement,  perspicuity, 
and  the  soundness  of  judgment  it  displays."  Coleman  was 
encouraged  to  plan  a  volume  of  reports  of  decisions  In 
the  State  Supreme  Court.  At  that  moment  the  Clerkship 
of  the  Circuit  Court  fell  vacant.    Hamilton  at  once  wrote 


1 6  THE  EVENING  POST 

Governor  John  Jay  and  also  Ebenezer  Foote,  a  member 
of  the  Council  of  Appointment,  requesting  that  the  place, 
which  paid  $3,000  a  year,  be  given  his  friend  Coleman. 
There  was  another  candidate  with  a  really  superior  claim, 
but  he  was  passed  by.  Governor  Jay  announced  the  result 
in  the  following  hitherto  unpublished  letter  to  Hamilton : 

Mr.  Coleman,  who  was  yesterday  appointed  Clerk  of  the  New 
York  Circuit,  will  be  the  bearer  of  this.  Mr.  Skinner  was  first 
nominated — for  where  character  and  qualifications  for  office  are 
admitted,  the  candidate  whose  age,  standing,  and  prior  public 
service  is  highest  should,  I  think,  take  the  lead;  unless  perhaps  in 
cases  peculiarly  circumstanced. — Mr.  Skinner  did  not  succeed. 
Mr.  Coleman  was  then  nominated,  and  the  Council,  expecting 
much  from  his  reports,  and  considering  the  office  as  necessary 
to  enable  him  to  accomplish  that  work,  advised  his  appointment. 
Mr.  Coleman's  embarrassments,  and  whatever  appeared  to  me 
necessary  to  observe  respecting  the  candidates,  were  mentioned 
antecedent  to  the  nomination.  My  feelings  were  in  Coleman's 
favor,  and  had  my  judgment  been  equally  so,  he  would  have 
suffered  less  anxiously  than  he  has.  I  mentioned  your  opinion  in 
his  favor ;  and  I  wish  the  appointment  may  be  generally  approved. 
Ten  or  eleven  of  the  members  recommended  Mr.  Skinner — 
some  of  them  will  not  be  pleased. 

I  hope  Mr.  Coleman  will  be  attentive  to  the  reports.  Much 
expectation  has  been  excited,  and  disappointment  would  produce 
disgust.  It  is,  I  think,  essential  to  him  that  the  work  be  prosecuted 
with  diligence,  but  not  with  haste;  and  that  they  may  be  such  as 
they  already  hope. 

But  in  the  general  overturn  of  1801,  Coleman — who 
had  duly  commenced  the  compilation  of  the  Supreme 
Court  Law  Reports,  beginning  with  1794,  and  whose 
labors  later  bore  fruit  in  what  is  called  Coleman  and 
Caines's  Reports — lost  his  post.  He  could  have  resumed 
practice  with  Wells,  who  also  lost  his  justiceship  in  the 
ten-pound  court.  But  the  bar  was  overcrowded,  having 
about  a  hundred  members  in  a  city  of  60,000,  and  Cole- 
man had  starved  at  it  before.  While  a  lawyer  in 
Greenfield,  he  had  established  the  first  newspaper  there, 
the  Impartial  Intelligencer,  and  had  written  for  it,  and 


FOUNDING  THE  EVENING  POST         17 

he  had  then  half  formed  an  ambition  to  conduct  a  news- 
paper in  New  York.  Far  from  having  any  money  of 
his  own,  he  had  been  left  deep  in  debt  by  his  participation 
in  the  unfortunate  Yazoo  speculation  in  Georgia  lands. 
But  he  knew  that  the  party  leaders  were  thinking  of  the 
need  for  a  better  Federalist  newspaper,  and  he  stepped 
forward  to  offer  his  assistance  in  establishing  one. 

During  the  spring  Coleman  was  busy  campaigning  for 
Stephen  Van  Rensselaer,  Fcderahst  candidate  for  Gov- 
ernor, who  happened  to  be  Hamilton's  brother-in-law, 
and  for  the  Assembly  ticket.  The  American  Citizen 
repeatedly  commented  on  his  activity;  on  April  22,  it 
predicted  that  this  "seller  of  two-pence  halfpenny 
pamphlets,  this  sycophantic  messenger  of  Gen.  Hamilton 
.  .  .  will  at  one  time  or  another  receive  a  due  reward." 
During  probably  May  and  June,  in  consultations  among 
Hamilton,  Wells,  Mayor  Varick,  Troup,  Woolsey,  a 
Commissioner  of  Bankruptcy  named  Caleb  S.  Riggs,  and 
Coleman,  the  plan  of  the  Evening  Post  was  drafted. 
Woolsey  had  married  a  sister  of  Theodore  Dwight,  the 
editor  of  the  Connecticut  Courant  at  Hartford,  and 
wished  Dwight  placed  in  charge,  but  he  finally  acquiesced 
in  entrusting  the  new  enterprise  to  Coleman. 

A  founders'  list  was  secretly  circulated  among  trusty 
Federalists,  and  signers  were  expected  to  contribute  a 
minimum  of  $100.  The  initial  capital  required  was 
probably  not  much  in  excess  of  $10,000.  A  Baltimore 
newspaper,  the  Anti-Democrat,  was  established  at  this 
time  by  Judge  Samuel  Chase,  Robert  Goodloe  Harper, 
and  other  Federalists,  for  $8,000.  Hamilton's  adherents, 
who  included  almost  the  whole  commercial  group  of 
New  York,  were  wealthy;  and  Hamilton  himself,  liberal 
to  a  fault  with  his  large  income,  probably  offered  not  less 
than  $1,000.  Besides  the  names  already  listed,  we  know 
of  some  other  men  who  contributed,  as  the  merchant, 
Samuel  Boyd,  and  the  dismissed  Collector,  Joshua  Sands. 
Coleman  told  the  poet  Bryant,  his  successor,  that  Archi- 
bald Gracie,  one  of  the  richest  and  most  dignified 
merchants,  had  assisted,  and  a  tradition  in  the  family 


1 8  THE  EVENING  POST 

has  it  that  the  Evening  Post  was  founded  at  a  meeting 
in  the  Gracie  home.  The  American  Citizen  of  the  time 
declares  that  a  certain  auctioneer — perhaps  Leonard 
Bleecker,  perhaps  the  elder  Philip  Hone,  perhaps  James 
Byrne — "contributed  largely."  These  men  did  not 
present  the  money  outright,  but  vested  the  property  in 
Coleman,  who  gav6  his  notes  in  return;  unfortunately, 
he  was  never  able  to  meet  them,  and  before  1810  all 
his  American  creditors,  as  one  of  his  friends  states  in  a 
letter  of  that  year,  "signed  his  discharge  without  receiving 
anything."  The  project  was  rapidly  matured.  "In  a 
moment  thousands  of  dollars  were  raised,"  wrote 
Cheetham.  During  the  summer  of  1801  a  fine  brick 
office  was  made  ready  on  Pine  Street,  and  about  the 
beginning  of  November  would-be  readers  were  asked  to 
enter  their  subscriptions. 

The  initial  subscribers  numbered  about  600,  and  among 
the  names  entered  in  the  journal's  first  account  book, 
which  was  unfortunately  lost  years  ago,  were  the 
following : 

Daniel  D.  Tompkins,  i  Wall  Street 

John  Jacob  Astor,  71  Liberty  Street 

Garrett  H.  Striker,  181  Broadway 

Henry  Doyer,  Bowery  Lane 

Anthony  Lispenard,  19  Park  Street 

Strong  Sturges,  13  Oliver  Street 

Anthony  Bleecker,  25  Water  Street 

Joel  and  Jonathan  Post,  Wall  and  William  Streets 

Isaac  Haviland,  186  Water  Street 

John  McKesson,  82  Broadway 

Matthew  Clarkson,  26  Pearl  Street 

Nathaniel  L.  Sturges,  47  Wall  Street 

Philip  Livingston,  Yonkers 

Philip  Hone,  56  Dey  Street 

R.  Belden,  153  Broadway 

Col.  Barclay,  142  Greenwich  Street 

John  Cruger,  30  Greenwich  Street 

Anthony  Dey,  19  Cedar  Street 

Robert  Morris,  33  Water  Street 

Robert  Thorne,  2  Coenties  slip 


FOUNDING  THE  EVENING  POST         19 

Isaac  Ledyard,  2  Pearl  Street 
James  Carter,   195  Greenwich  Street 
Cornelius  Bogert,  24  Pine  Street 
Grant  Thorburn,  22  Nassau  Street 
Philip  L.  Jones,  74  Broadway 
Robert  Swarthout,  62  Water  Street 

In  the  first  Issue,   Nov.    16,    1801,   appeared  a   pro- 
spectus which  may  have  been  written  by  Coleman  alone, 
but  is  more  likely  the  product  of  his  collaboration  with 
Hamilton.     Every  reader  looked  first  to  see  what  was 
said  of  party  affairs.     The  editor  promised  to  support 
Federalism,  but  without  dogmatism  or  intolerance;  he^ 
declared  his  belief  "that  honest  and  virtuous  men  are  to  \ 
be  found  In  each  party'*;  and  he  made  It  clear  that  the   I 
columns  would  always  be  open  to  communications  from  / 
Democrats.     Merchants  were  assured  that  special  atten- 
tion would  be  paid  to  whatever  affected  them,  and  that 
the  earliest  commercial  Information,  which  In  those  days 
meant  chiefly  arrivals   and  sailings  of  ships,  would  be 
obtained.    Newspaper  exchanges,  and  current  pamphlets, 
magazines,  and  reviews  would  be  searched  for  whatever 
was  most  Informing   and   entertaining.      Letter-writers 
were  asked  not  to  enclose  their  names,  a  bad  rule  which 
Coleman  soon  found  it  expedient  to  abrogate.    Prominent 
In  the  prospectus  was  the  paragraph  still  carried  at  the 
head  of  the  Evening  Post's  editorial  columns: 

The  design  of  this  paper  is  to  diffuse  among  the  people  correct^ 
information  on  all  interesting  subjects,  to  inculcate  just  principles   I 

in  religion,  morals,  and  politics;  and  to  cultivate  a  taste  for  sound ] 

literature. 

An  effort  \yas  actually  for  a  time  made  to  tcich  religious 
truths.  In  an  early  Issue  a  letter  was  printed,  probably 
from  some  cleric,  combating  certain  atheistic  views  ex- 
pressed by  Cheetham's  American  Citizen;  an  editorial  ar- 
ticle soon  after  was  devoted  to  a  discussion  of  the  Revela- 
tion of  St.  John;  and  Coleman  never  tired  of  attacking 
the  deism  of  local  "Illumlnatl." 

In  Its  opening  sentences  the  prospectus  stated  that  the 


10  THE  EVENING  POST 

journal  would  appear  in  a  dress  worthy  of  the  liberal 
patronage  promised.  To  modern  eyes  the  first  volumes 
are  cramped,  dingy,  and  uninviting.  Each  issue  consisted 
of  a  single  sheet  folded  once,  to  make  four  pages,  as 
continued  to  be  the  case  until  the  middle  eighties;  a  page 
measured  only  14  by  k)]/^  inches;  and  the  conventional 
cuts  of  ships,  houses,  stoves,  furniture,  and  coiffures 
would  be  disfiguring  if  they  were  not  quaint.  But  when 
we  compare  the  Evening  Post  with  its  contemporaries  we 
see  that  the  statement  was  not  empty.  Editor  Callender 
remarked  that  "This  newspaper  is,  beyond  all  compari- 
son, the  most  elegant  piece  of  workmanship  that  we  have 
seen,  either  in  Europe  or  America."  The  Gazette  of  the 
United  States  commented  that  it  was  published  "in  a  style 
by  far  superior  to  that  of  any  other  newspaper  in  the 
United  States."  How  could  it  afford  this  style?  it  asked. 
Advertisements  were  the  secret,  for  out  of  twenty  col- 
umns, fourteen  or  fifteen  were  always  filled  with  the  pat- 
ronage of  Federalist  merchants.  Few  journals  then  had 
more  than  two  full  fonts  of  type,  and  some  were  set  en- 
tirely in  minion.  Coleman  and  his  printer,  a  young  man 
from  Hartford  named  Michael  Burnham,  had  started 
with  four  full  fonts  of  new  type  beautifully  cut;  they 
used  a  superior  grade  of  paper;  and  the  arrangement  and 
use  of  headings  had  been  carefully  studied.  Dignity  was 
then,  as  always  later,  emphasized. 

Every  Saturday  a  weekly  edition,  called  the  Herald^ 
was  sent  to  distant  subscribers,  from  Boston  to  Savannah, 
with  fewer  advertisements  and  at  least  twice  the  reading 
matter.  Noah  Webster,  in  conducting  the  Minerva,  had 
been  the  first  New  York  editor  to  perceive  the  economy 
and  profit  in  publishing  such  a  journal  "for  the  country" 
without  recomposition  of  type,  and  had  himself  used  the 
name  Herald.  The  New  York  Federalists  relied  prin- 
cipally upon  the  weekly  for  a  national  diffusion  of  their 
views,  and  with  reason,  for  at  an  early  date  in  1802  the 
circulation  rose  above  1600,  as  against  slightly  more  than  . 
1 100  for  the  Evening  Post  itself.  These  were  respectable 
figures  for  that  time. 


FOUNDING  THE  EVENING  POST         21 

AVhat  should  the  Federalist  chieftains,  Hamilton,  Wol- 
cott,  King,  Gouverneur  Morris,  and  others,  make  of  these 
two  instruments  ?  To  answer  this,  we  shall  have  to  look 
first  at  the  qualifications  of  "Hamilton's  editor,"  as  other 
journals  called  him. 

The  abilities  of  Coleman,  an  interesting  type  of  the  best 
Federalist  editor,  were  as  great  as  those  of  any  other 
American  journalist  of  the  time.  His  formal  training 
was  unusually  good  for  a  day  in  which  powerful  figures 
like  Duane,  Cheetham,  Binns,  and  Callender  were  com- 
paratively uncultivated  men,  who  wrote  with  vigor  but 
without  polish  or  even  grammatical  correctness.  Born 
in  Boston  on  Feb.  14,  1766,  he  was  fortunate  enough 
to  be  sent  to  Phillips  Andover,  the  first  incorporated 
academy  in  New  England,  soon  after  it  opened  in  1778. 
Though  he  was  a  poor  boy,  he  had  for  fellow-pupils  the 
sons  of  the  best  families  of  the  region,  including  Josiah 
Quincy,  the  future  mayor  of  Boston  and  president  of 
Harvard;  and  for  "preceptor"  the  famous  Eliphalet  Pear- 
son, a  master  of  the  harsh  type  of  Keate  of  Eton  or  Dr. 
Busby  of  Westminster.  Here  he  gained  "a  certain  ele- 
gance of  scholarship"  in  Greek  and  Latin  which,  Bryant 
tells  us,  "was  reckoned  among  his  qualifications  as  a 
journalist."  He  formed  a  taste  for  reading,  and  his 
editorials  bear  evidence  of  his  knowledge  of  all  the 
standard  English  authors — Shakespeare,  Milton,  Hume, 
Johnson,  Fielding,  Smollett,  and  the  eighteenth-century 
poets  and  essayists.  Sterne  was  a  favorite  with  him,  and 
like  all  other  editors,  he  knew  the  "Letters  of  Junius" 
almost  by  heart.  Most  Phillips  Andover  boys  went  on 
to  Harvard,  but  Coleman  began  the  study  of  law  in  the 
office  of  Robert  Treat  Paine,  then  Attorney-General  of 
Massachusetts,  at  Worcester.  Nothing  is  known  of  his 
life  there  save  that  he  became  an  intimate  friend  of  the 
Rev.  Aaron  Bancroft,  father  of  the  historian  George 
Bancroft;  and  that  he  dropped  his  books  to  serve  in  the 
winter  march  of  the  militia  in  1786  against  Shays. 

Bryant  knew  Coleman  only  in  his  decHning  years,  but  he 
tells  us  that  he  was  "of  that  temperament  which  some 


22  THE  EVENING  POST 

physiologists  call  the  sanguine."  Hopefulness  and  energy 
were  fully  evinced  In  the  decade  he  spent  at  the  bar  in 
Greenfield,  Hampshire  County,  from  1788  to  the  end  of 
1797.  He  practiced  across  the  Vermont  and  New 
Hampshire  lines,  made  money,  showed  marked  public 
spirit,  and  seemed  destined  to  be  more  than  a  well-to-do 
squire — to  be  one  of  the  dignitaries  of  northwest  Massa- 
chusetts. The  newspaper  which  he  founded  at  Greenfield 
early  in  1792,  but  did  not  edit,  prospered,  and  under  a 
changed  name  Is  now  the  third  oldest  surviving  news- 
paper in  the  State.  In  the  same  year  Coleman  set  on  foot 
a  subscription  for  the  town's  first  fire-engines.  He  was 
active  in  a  movement,  which  many  years  later  succeeded, 
to  divide  Hampshire  County;  he  set  out  many  of  the 
fine  street-elms;  and  in  1796  he  was  one  Incorporator  of 
a  company  to  pipe  water  into  the  town.  He  began  train- 
ing young  men  to  the  bar  in  his  own  office.  In  the  Presi- 
dential campaign  of  1796  he  made  many  speeches,  and 
his  political  activity  was  further  exemplified  by  terms  in 
the  Massachusetts  House  in  1795  and  1796.  He  was  only 
thirty  years  old  when  In  September  of  the  latter  year 
he  received  his  honorary  degree  at  Dartmouth.  When 
he  invested  his  money  In  the  Yazoo  Purchase,  he  believed 
that  he  would  make  a  fortune — a  Greenfield  contempo- 
rary says  that  he  estimated  his  profits  at  $30,000.  In 
the  flush  of  this  delusion,  he  married,  and  bought  a  spa- 
cious site  In  the  town  with  a  fine  view  of  the  Pocumtuck 
Hills  and  Green  River  Valley,  where  he  commenced  the 
erection  of  a  house  now  regarded  as  one  of  the  finest 
specimens  of  Colonial  architecture  In  the  section. 

The  disaster  which  overtook  Coleman  when,  at  the 
close  of  1796,  the  Georgia  Legislature  annulled  the 
Yazoo  Purchase  on  the  ground  that  it  had  been  effected 
by  corruption,  he  faced  without  flinching.  It  was  natural 
for  him,  on  settling  his  affairs  In  1797,  to  seek  his  fortune 
in  New  York.  We  find  It  stated  by  a  journalistic  opponent 
that  he  had  received  promises  of  help  from  "Mr.  Burr 
and  other  leading  characters."  At  any  rate,  his  first 
partnership,  which  he  later  lamented  as  "the  greatest 


FOUNDING  THE  EVENING  POST         23 

error  of  my  life,"  was  with  Burr,  who  had  just  ended 
his  term  in  the  United  States  Senate.  Coleman  later 
wrote  that  his  share  of  the  office  receipts  "came  essen- 
tially short  of  affording  me  a  subsistence."  One  other 
man  destined  to  be  a  famous  Federalist  editor,  Theodore 
Dwight,  had  previously  had  a  similar  partnership  with 
Burr  and  had  dissolved  it.  Coleman  did  better  when  he 
joined  his  fortunes  first  with  Francis  Arden,  and  then  with 
John  Wells.  But  he  was  still  desperately  poor,  and  his 
creditors  pressed  him.  Among  those  whom  he  owed 
money  were  Gen.  Stephen  R.  Bradley,  of  Westminster, 
Vt.,  later  a  United  States  Senator,  and  a  friend  of  Brad- 
ley's, Edward  Houghton;  these  two  brought  suit,  and  on 
Jan.  27,  1 80 1,  obtained  judgments  in  a  New  York  court, 
the  former  for  $691.71,  the  latter  for  $443.67. 

Yet  under  these  trying  circumstances  Coleman's  ami- 
able deportment,  frankness,  and  activity  made  him  well- 
wishers  among  the  best  men  of  the  city.  He  was  of 
athletic  frame,  and  at  this  time  of  robust  appearance; 
with  curling  hair  and  sparkling  eyes,  he  was  a  figure  to 
attract  attention  anywhere.  "His  manners  were  kind 
and  courteous,"  says  Bryant;  "he  expressed  himself  in 
conversation  with  fluency,  energy,  and  decision";  and  his 
enemy  Cheetham  testifies  that  "no  man  knew  better  how 
to  get  into  the  good  graces  of  everybody  better  than 
himself."  Resolving  to  demonstrate  to  the  bar  the  util- 
ity of  accurate  reports  of  all  important  cases  and  deci- 
sions, he  spared  no  labor  or  pains  upon  his  report  of  the 
trial  of  Levi  Weeks;  for  this  little  volume  of  ninety-eight 
pages  he  collated  five  other  notebooks  with  his  own. 

In  all,  Coleman  was  well  fitted  to  become  the  leading 
Federalist  editor  of  the  nation.  The  Evening  Post  was 
expected  by  the  party  chieftains  to  take  a  prompt  and 
vigorous  stand  on  every  great  public  question,  and  to 
voice  an  opinion  which  lesser  journals  could  echo.  It 
was  a  heavy  responsibility.  "The  people  of  America 
derive  their  political  information  chiefly  from  newspa- 
pers," wrote  Callender  in  1802.  "Duane  upon  one  side, 
and  Coleman  upon  the  other,  dictate  at  this  moment  the 


24  THE  EVENING  POST 

sentiments  of  perhaps  fifty  thousand  American  citizens." 
When  In  1807  the  first  journal  of  the  party  was  estab- 
lished at  the  new  capital,  Jonathan  Findley's  Washington 
Federalist,  its  founder,  after  enumerating  all  the  requi- 
sites of  an  editor,  named  Coleman  as  their  foremost  ex- 
emplar. "I  cannot,  In  the  field  of  controversy,  vie  with 
a  Coleman."  In  the  summer  of  1802  Coleman  was  nick- 
named the  "Field-marshal  of  the  Federal  Editors"  by 
his  opponent  Callender,  and  the  fitting  appellation  stuck. 
Wielding  a  ready  pen,  Coleman  was  apt  in  literary 
allusions.  His  knowledge  of  law  enabled  him  to  write 
with  authority  upon  legislation,  constitutional  questions, 
and  practical  politics.  Unlike  his  successor  Bryant,  he 
mingled  freely  with  men  in  places  of  public  resort,  and 
kept  his  ear  to  the  ground.  He  took  an  interest  In 
letters  and  the  drama  which  was  quite  unknown  to  other 
"political  editors."  Some  pretensions  to  being  an  author- 
ity upon  style  he  always  asserted,  and  he  never  tired  of 
correcting  the  errors  of  Democratic  scribblers.  Against 
certain  expressions  he  made  a  stubborn  battle — for  exam- 
ple, against  "averse  from"  instead  of  "averse  to,"  and 
against  "over  a  signature"  Instead  of  "under"  it;  In  18 14 
he  offered  $100  for  every  instance  of  the  last-named 
phrase  In  a  good  author  since  Clarendon.  He  was  ex- 
cessively generous,  always  ready  to  lend  his  ear  to  a  piti- 
ful story;  Dr.  John  W.  Francis  relates  that  his  eyes 
would  moisten  over  the  woes  of  one  of  the  paper-boys. 
This  kindliness  made  the  columns  of  the  Evening  Post 
always  open  to  charitable  or  reformative  projects.  Cole- 
man's chief  faults  were  three.  His  style,  like  Hamilton's, 
was  diffuse;  he  sometimes  forgot  taste  and  decency  in 
assailing  his  opponents;  and  he  was  a  wretched  business 
man.  A  few  years  after  the  journal  was  founded  its 
money  affairs  fell  Into  such  embarrassment  that  friends 
Intervened,  and  an  arrangement  was  made  by  which 
Michael  Burnham,  the  printer,  became  half  owner,  with 
entire  control  of  the  finances. 


FOUNDING  THE  EVENING  POST        25 

II 

Contemporary  writers  from  1801  to  1904,  however, 
seldom  spoke  of  the  Evening  Post  as  Coleman's  news- 
paper; It  was  usually  ''Hamilton's  journal"  or  "Hamil- 
ton's gazette."  Just  so  had  Freneau's  National  Gazette 
2i  decade  before  been  called  "Jefferson's  journal,"  so 
Cheetham's  American  Citizen  was  now  sometimes  called 
"Clinton's  journal,"  and  there  was  even  "Levi  Lincoln's 
journal,"  the  Worcester  National  Aegis,  which  Attorney- 
General  Lincoln  helped  support.  During  1801  Burr  and 
his  partisans  were  much  dissatisfied  with  Cheetham's 
newspaper,  and  this  dissatisfaction  came  to  a  head  after 
the  spring  elections  the  following  year.  A  group  which 
included  Burr,  John  Swartwout,  W.  P.  Van  Ness,  Col. 
William  S.  Smith,  and  John  Sanford  established  a  paper 
called  the  New  York  Morning  Chronicle,  and  after  of- 
fering the  editorship  to  Charles  Holt,  who  refused,  gave 
It  to  Washington  Irving's  brother,  Dr.  Peter  Irving, 
known  for  his  tea-table  talents  and  effeminate  manners 
as  "Miss  Irving."  The  Chronicle  was  of  course  for 
several  years  called  "Burr's  journal."  Just  how  close 
was  Hamilton's  connection,  never  openly  avowed,  with 
the  Evening  Post? 

The  most  direct  evidence  on  the  subject  outside  of 
newspaper  files  of  the  period  is  furnished  by  the  auto- 
biography of  Jeremiah  Mason,  a  native  of  Connecticut, 
who  practiced  law  in  Vermont  and  New  Hampshire 
alongside  Coleman,  and  became  a  United  States  Senator 
from  the  latter  State.    He  writes  of  Coleman: 

As  a  lawyer  he  was  respectable,  but  his  chief  excellence  con- 
sisted in  a  critical  knowledge  of  the  English  language,  and  the 
adroit  management  of  political  discussion.  His  paper  for  several 
years  gave  the  leading  tone  to  the  press  of  the  Federal  party.  His 
acquaintances  were  often  surprised  by  the  ability  of  some  of  his 
editorial  articles,  which  were  supposed  to  be  beyond  his  depth. 
Having  a  convenient  opportunity,  I  asked  him  who  wrote,  or  aided 
in  writing,  those  articles.  He  frankly  answered  that  he  made  no 
secret  of  it;  that  his  paper  was  set  up  under  the  auspices  of 


26  THE  EVENING  POST 

General  Hamilton,  and  that  he  assisted  him.  I  then  asked,  "Does 
he  write  in  your  paper?" — "Never  a  word." — "How,  then,  does 
he  assist?" — His  answer  was,  "Whenever  anything  occurs  on 
which  I  feel  the  want  of  information  I  state  matters  to  him,  some- 
times a  note;  he  appoints  a  time  when  I  may  see  him,  usually  a 
late  hour  in  the  evening.  He  always  keeps  himself  minutely 
informed  on  all  political  matters.  As  soon  as  I  see  him,  he  begins 
in  a  deliberate  manner  to  dictate  and  I  to  note  down  in  short- 
hand; when  he  stops,  my  article  is  completed." 

(    "There  Is  ample  corroboratory  proof  that  Hamilton 
contributed  much  to  the  opinions  and  expression  of  the 
Evening  Post,  and  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
this  is  the  way  he  frequently  did  it.    Coleman  could  read- 
Jly  have  taken  the  dictation  in  shorthand.     Seldom  in  the 
thirty-two  months  between  the  founding  of  the  Evening! 
Post  and  the  death  of  Hamilton  could  the  General  have 
found  time  for  deliberate  writing.     He  had  one  of  the 
largest  law  practices  in  the  country,  and  he  was  the  leader 
of  a  great  party,  regarded  by  a  majority  of  Federalists 
as  the  dashing  strategist  who  would  yet  perhaps  make 
them  as  powerful  as  in  the  days  of  Washington.     Yet 
.that  energetic  fighter  could  not  be  kept  out  of  the  columns. 
'       "Those  only  who  were  his  Intimate  friends,'*  wrote 
Coleman  in  1816,  "know  with  what  readiness  he  could 
apply  the  faculties  of  his  illuminated  mind."     No  doubt 
Coleman  resorted  for  guidance  on  many  nights  to  Hamil- 
ton's home  at  26  Broadway — the  editor's  house  was  a 
few  blocks  distant,  at  61  Hudson  Street — and  on  not  a 
few  week-ends   to   his   country   residence,    called    "The 
Grange"  after  the  ancestral  Hamilton  estate  In  Scotland, 
which  stood  on  Kingsbridge  Road  at  what  Is  now  the  cor- 
ner of  I42d  Street  and  Tenth  Avenue. 

From  1 80 1  to  1804  only  a  single  bit  of  signed  writing 
from  Hamilton's  pen  appeared  in  the  Evening  Post.  This 
was  a  communication  denying  the  hoary  legend,  origi- 
nally circulated  in  derogation  of  Washington  and  Lafay- 
ette, that  at  Yorktown  Lafayette  had  ordered  Hamilton 
to  put  to  death  all  British  prisoners  In  the  redoubt  which 
he  was  sent  forward  to  capture,  and  that  he  had  declined 


Alexander  Hamilton 
Chief  Founder  of  the  Evening  Post. 

(The  Hamilton  College  Statue) 


y 


FOUNDING  THE  EVENING  POST         27 

to  obey  the  Inhumane  command.  But  a  much  more  Im- 
portant contribution  was  hardly  concealed.  This  was  a 
series  of  articles  upon  President  Jefferson's  first  annual 
message,  written  under  the  signature  "Lucius  Crassus," 
and  published  irregularly  from  Dec.  17,  1801,  till  April 
8,  1802.  They  were  eighteen  in  all,  and  not  equal  to 
Hamilton's  best  work.  At  one  time  the  series  was  inter- 
rupted by  a  trip  of  Hamilton's  to  Albany,  but  the  editor 
explained  the  delay  by  saying  that  he  was  waiting  to  let 
the  distant  journals  copying  the  series  catch  up  with  back 
installments.  Before  their  publication  was  quite  com- 
pleted in  the  Evening  Post,  Coleman  issued  them  in  a 
neat  pamphlet  of  127  pages,  with  an  Introduction  by  him- 
self, for  50  cents. 

All  other  contributions  must  be  sought  for  upon  Inter- 
nal evidence,  and  such  evidence  can  never  be  conclusive. 
No  one  Is  yet  certain  who  wrote  some  of  the  essays  of 
''The  Federalist,"  and  it  Is  impossible  to  point  to  unsigned 
papers  in  the  Evening  Tost  and  say,  "These  are  Hamil- 
ton's." The  style  might  be  that  of  almost  any  other 
cultivated  man  of  legal  training;  the  content  might  be 
that  of  such  other  able  contributors  as  Gouverneur  Morris 
or  Oliver  Wolcott.  It  is  possible  that  a  long,  well-written 
article  of  March  12,  1802,  upon  Representative  Giles's 
speech  for  the  repeal  of  the  Judiciary  Act  Is  Hamilton's; 
it  contains  a  good  deal  of  information  upon  the  pro- 
posals which  Hamilton  made  for  indirect  taxation  when 
he  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  It  Is  possible  that 
Hamilton  dictated  part  or  all  of  the  attack  of  April  19, 
1803,  upon  the  Manhattan  Bank  founded  by  De  Witt 
Clinton's  faction,  for  it  contains  much  sound  disquisition 
upon  the  principles  of  public  finance.  It  is  quite  possible 
that  he  furnished  at  least  an  outline  for  the  article  of 
July  9,  1803,  upon  neutrality,  which  deals  in  considerable 
part  with  the  role  he,  Knox,  and  Jefferson  played  in  the 
Genet  affair;  and  that  he  assisted  later  the  same  month  in 
an  article  upon  the  funding  system,  land  tax,  and  national 
debt.  But  it  is  bootless  to  pile  up  such  conjectures.  The 
editorials  upon  the  diplomatic  aspects  of  the  Louisiana 


28  THE  EVENING  POST 

treaty,  the  Chase  Impeachment,  and  the  navigation  of  the 
Mississippi  certainly  represented  Hamilton's  views. 

There  is  abundant  evidence  that  Coleman  wished  to 
do  Hamilton  personal  as  well  as  political  service  in  the 
Evening  Post.  His  first  opportunity  to  do  this  occurred 
less  than  ten  days  after  the  founding  of  the  journal,  when 
on  Nov.  24,  1 80 1,  it  announced  the  death  of  Philip, 
Hamilton's  eldest  and  most  promising  son — "murdered," 
said  the  editor,  "in  a  duel."  The  attendant  circumstances 
were  obscure,  and  Coleman  spared  no  labor  to  inquire 
into  them  and  set  them  forth  accurately  and  tactfully, 
correcting  the  accounts  in  the  Democratic  press.  It  ap- 
peared that  Philip  Hamilton,  a  youth  of  twenty,  was 
sitting  with  another  young  man  in  a  box  at  a  performance 
of  Cumberland's  "The  West  Indian,"  and  that  they  ex- 
changed some  jocose  remarks  upon  a  Fourth  of  July 
oration  made  the  previous  summer  by  one  George  I. 
Eacker,  a  Democrat.  Eacker  overheard  them,  called 
them  into  the  lobby,  said  that  he  would  not  be  "insulted 
by  a  set  of  rascals,"  and  scuffled  with  them.  The  two 
excitable  boys  challenged  him.  Young  Hamilton's  com- 
panion fought  first,  Sunday  morning  on  the  Weehawken 
dueling-ground,  and  no  one  was  injured.  On  Monday 
afternoon  the  second  duel  occurred.  "Hamilton  received 
a  shot  through  the  body  at  the  first  discharge,"  reported 
the  Evening  Post,  "and  fell  without  firing.  He  was 
brought  across  the  ferry  to  his  father's  house,  where  he 
languished  of  the  wound  until  this  morning  [Tuesday], 
when  he  expired."  Coleman  took  occasion  to  utter  a 
shrewd  warning  against  dueling.  "Reflections  on  this 
horrid  custom  must  occur  to  every  friend  of  humanity; 
but  the  voice  of  an  individual  or  the  press  must  be  Inef- 
fectual without  additional,  strong,  and  pointed  legislative 
interference.  Fashion  has  placed  It  upon  a  footing  which 
nothing  short  of  this  can  control."  The  truth  of  this 
statement  had  a  melancholy  illustration  within  three  years. 

Coleman  also  contradicted  In  detail,  using  informa- 
tion which  Hamilton  alone  could  have  furnished,  a  spite- 
ful story  to  the  effect  that  President  Washington,  when 


FOUNDING  THE  EVENING  POST         29 

Hamilton  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  used  to  send 
him  public  papers  with  the  request,  ''Dear  Hamilton,  put 
this  into  style  for  me,"  and  that  Hamilton  boasted  of 
the  service.  Again,  Coleman  assured  his  readers,  using 
more  information  from  Hamilton,  that  the  letters  which 
Jefferson  wrote  as  Secretary  of  State  to  the  British  Min- 
ister, George  Hammond,  upon  the  debts  owed  to  the 
British,  were  given  their  finishing  touches  by  Hamilton. 

When  Cheetham  and  other  Clintonians  charged  Ham- 
ilton with  having  procured  Burr  a  large  loan  at  the 
Manhattan  Bank — some  Democrats  were  always  snif- 
fing a  coalition  between  the  Federalists  and  the  Burrites — 
Coleman  placed  the  story  in  the  ridiculous  light  it  de- 
served. However,  he  steadily  refused  to  dignify  the 
many  grosser  slanders  uttered  against  Hamilton  by  any 
notice.  After  the  statesman's  death,  the  editor  repeatedly 
delivered  utterances  which  he  said  he  had  "from  Hamil- 
ton's own  lips,"  some  of  them  upon  matters  of  great  im- 
portance; for  example,  upon  the  role  which  Madison 
played  in  the  Federal  Convention.  Coleman  in  his  later 
years  also  professed  to  be  an  authority  upon  the  author- 
ship of  the  "Federalist."  It  appears  from  the  Evening 
Post  files  that  Senator  Lodge,  the  editor  of  Hamilton's 
works,  is  mistaken  in  believing  Coleman  the  editor  of  the 
1802  edition  of  that  volume — that  John  Wells  edited  it; 
but  Coleman  took  a  keen  interest  in  its  publication. 

"It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  Mr.  Coleman,  in 
difficult  cases,  consults  with  Mr.  Hamilton,"  Cheetham 
observed  in  1802.  "Editors  must  consult  superior  minds; 
it  is  their  business  to  draw  information  from  the  purest 
and  correctest  sources."  Coleman  never  denied  such 
statements.  In  the  summer  of  1802  the  Baltimore 
American  remarked  that  the  Evening  Post  was  "said  to 
be  directly  under  the  controul  of  Alexander  Hamilton." 
The  editor  rejoined  that  it  was  "unnecessary  to  answer 
him  whether  the  Evening  Post  is  so  much  honoured  as  to 
be  under  the  influence  of  General  Hamilton  or  not,"  and 
went  on  to  imply  distinctly  that  It  was.  Callender  re- 
ferred to   Coleman  as   "Hamilton's   typographer."     It 


30  THE  EVENING  POST 

is  worth  noting  that  when  Charles  Pinckney,  leader  of 
the  South  Carolina  Federalists,  found  that  the  weekly 
Herald  was  not  being  regularly  received  by  the  Charles- 
ton subscribers,  he  wrote  in  expostulation  not  to  Coleman 
but  to  Hamilton,  asking  him  to  speak  to  the  editor. 

Upon  the  Evening  Post,  as  upon  the  Federalist  party, 
the  tragic  death  of  Hamilton  fell  as  a  stunning  blow. 
Announcing  the  calamity  on  June  13,  1804,  Coleman 
added  that  "as  soon  as  our  feelings  will  permit,  we  shall 
deem  it  a  duty  to  present  a  sketch  of  the  character  of 
our  ever-to-be  lamented  patron  and  best  friend."  The 
press  of  the  nation  looked  to  him.  The  best  report,  said 
the  Fredericktown  (Md.)  Herald,  a  Federalist  sheet,  "is 
expected  in  the  Evening  Post  of  Mr.  Coleman,  than  whom 
no  man  perhaps  out  of  the  weeping  and  bereft  family 
of  his  illustrious  friend  can  more  fervently  bewail  the 
loss."  On  the  day  of  the  funeral  the  Evening  Post  was 
suspended,  the  only  time  in  its  history  that  it  missed  an 
issue  because  of  a  death,  and  for  a  week  all  its  news 
columns  carried  heavy  black  borders.  Unfortunately,  the 
editor  did  not  redeem  his  promise  of  a  character  sketch, 
professing  himself  too  deeply  grieved.  After  devoting 
a  month  to  discussion  of  the  duel  and  its  causes,  he  turned 
from  "the  most  awful  and  afflicting  subject  that  ever 
occupied  my  mind  and  weighed  down  my  heart" ;  he  could 
write  no  more  "of  him  whom  I  can  never  cease  to  mourn 
as  the  best  of  friends,  and  the  greatest  and  most  virtuous 
of  men." 

,  Hamilton's  family  and  associates  wished  a  volume  com- 
p*iled  from  the  various  tributes  to  his  memory,  and  by 
Mrs.  Hamilton's  express  wish,  the  task  was  entrusted  to 
Coleman.  Before  the  end  of  the  year  he  published  it 
with  the  title  of  "Facts  and  Documents  Relative  to  the 
Death  of  Major-General  Hamilton";  a  careful  and  taste- 
ful work  which  not  many  years  ago  was  reissued  in  ex- 
pensive form.  There  was  some  talk  then  and  later  of  a 
more  ambitious  commission.  Thus  in  1809  the  Provi- 
dence American,  deploring  the  fact  that  no  biography  of 
Hamilton  had  yet  appeared,  suggested  that  Coleman  was 


FOUNDING  THE  EVENING  POST         31 

"the  only  person  qualified."  The  editor,  however,  re- 
sponded that  a  gentleman  of  more  leisure,  by  whom  he 
meant  the  Rev.  John  M.  Mason,  had  already  accepted 
the  undertaking. 

Yet  the  death  of  its  great  patron  and  mentor  detracted 
less  from  the  vigor  of  the  Evening  Post  in  controversy 
than  might  have  been  supposed.  Coleman  from  the  be- 
ginning had  been  assisted  not  only  by  Hamilton  but  by  a 
half-dozen  of  the  ablest  New  Yorkers  of  Hamiltonian 
views.  Gouverneur  Morris  was  in  the  United  States 
Senate  until  1803,  but  Duane  of  the  Aurora  declares  that 
he  found  time  to  contribute  to  the  new  journal.  It  is  not 
unlikely  that  three  admirably  written  articles  upon  the 
peace  of  Amiens,  in  the  last  month  of  1801,  were  by  him; 
the  first  gave  a  survey  of  European  affairs,  the  second 
considered  the  effects  of  the  peace  upon  American  busi- 
ness, and  the  third  dealt  with  its  effect  upon  American 
parties.  In  1807  he  was  still  writing,  for  Coleman  later 
revealed  the  authorship  of  two  articles  he  then  sent  in 
upon  the  Beaumarchais  claims.  Oliver  Wolcott  was  a 
Federal  judge  when  the  Evening  Post  was  established, 
and  later  entered  business  in  New  York.  He  also  con- 
tributed from  time  to  time,  though  after  Hamilton's  death 
he  was  gradually  converted  from  Federalism  to  Democ- 
racy. In  1807  he  offered  Coleman  a  long  editorial  article 
signed  "Camillus."  As  Coleman  ruefully  said  later,  he 
was  "a  man  of  whose  political  as  well  as  personal  recti- 
tude I  then  entertained  so  little  suspicion  that  I  should 
have  delivered  any  article  by  him  directly  to  the  com- 
positor without  even  reading  it";  and  the  editor  had  it 
published  without  carefully  examining  it.  Its  views  were 
so  heretical  to  Federalists  that  in  18 14  the  Democrats 
were  still  tauntingly  reprinting  it,  and  Coleman  was  still 
speaking  of  the  episode  with  pain. 

According  to  Cheetham,  the  able  merchant,  W.  W. 
Woolsey,  whose  grandson,  Theodore  Winthrop,  lives  in 
our  literature,  appeared  now  and  then  in  the  columns  of 
the  newspaper  he  had  helped  found.  Ebenezer  Foote, 
the  former  State  Senator  and  member  of  the  Council  of 


32  THE  EVENING  POST 

Appointment,  who  had  helped  Coleman  obtain  his  clerk- 
ship of  the  Circuit  Court,  contributed  signed  articles. 
Rufus  King,  when  he  finished  his  service  as  Minister  to 
England  In  1803,  lent  a  valuable  hand,  and  as  late  as 
1 8 19  we  find  him  advising  Coleman  as  to  the  proper  edi- 
torial treatment  of  the  Florida  question.  The  editor 
came  to  know  him  sufficiently  well  to  give  an  intimate  char- 
acter sketch  of  him  in  Delaplaine's  Repository,  a  maga- 
zine of  the  day.  Almost  Indispensable  help  was  lent  by 
Coleman's  old  partner,  John  Wells,  who  at  times  acted 
as  virtual  associate  editor,  and  took  charge  of  the  journal 
during  occasional  absences  of  Coleman.  Wells  had  a 
taste  for  literature  and  the  drama  as  well  as  politics,  but, 
says  Coleman,  ''he  dealt  chiefly  in  the  didactic  and  the 
severe." 

Of  the  counsel  and  assistance  of  these  prominent  Fed- 
eralists Coleman  was  proud,  but  he  keenly  resented  any 
imputation  that  he  was  their  mere  tool  and  mouthpiece.. 
This  accusation  was  made  by  Cheetham  when  the  Eve- 
ning Post  was  not  a  year  old: 

Mr.  Coleman  says  that  to  pay  a  man  for  writing  against  the 
late  Administration  was  a  crime.  He  will  allow  that  the  applica- 
tion of  the  rule  will  be  just  when  applied  to  the  present  Adminis- 
tration. We  then  say  that  Mr.  Coleman  receives  the  wages  of 
sin;  for  he  is  in  every  sense  of  the  word  paid  for  writing  against 
the  present  Administration.  The  establishment  at  the  head  of 
which  he  is,  is  said  not  to  be  his  own;  it  is  said  to  belong  to  a  com- 
pany, of  which  General  Hamilton  is  one.  The  paper  was  com- 
menced for  the  avowed  purpose  of  opposing  the  Administration. 
Mr.  Coleman,  it  is  believed,  receives  a  yearly  salary  for  writing 
for  it,  and  for  his  wages  he  is  bound  to  write  against  the  Adminis- 
tration, whether  the  sentiments  he  pens  accord  with  his  own  or 
not.  He  runs  no  risk,  he  has  no  responsibility  upon  his  shoulders. 
He  may,  in  fact,  be  called  a  mere  hireling. 

Coleman  replied : 

Cheetham  says  that  the  establishment  of  the  Evening  Post  does 
not  belong  to  the  editor,  but  to  a  company,  of  which  General 
Hamilton  is  one;  and  that  the  editor  receives  a  yearly  salary  for 
writing  for  it.     Now,  though  we  do  not  perceive  that  this  is  of 


FOUNDING  THE  EVENING  POST         33 

much  consequence  in  any  way  but  to  the  editor's  pocket  ...  we 
shall  not  permit  it  to  pass  uncontradicted.  We  therefore  declare 
that  not  one  word  of  it  is  true.  The  establishment  of  the  Evening 
Post  is,  and  always  since  its  commencement  has  been,  the  sole 
property  of  the  editor:  it  does  not,  nor  did  it  ever,  belong  to  a 
company,  or  to  General  Hamilton,  or  to  any  one  else  but  the 
editor;  and  lastly,  the  editor  is  not  a  hireling,  nor  has  he  at  any 
period  of  his  life  received  wages  for  writing. 

Not  at  all  discomfited,  the  Jeffersonlan  organ  remarked 
— and  hit  near  the  truth — that  the  journal  had  probably 
been  given  to  Coleman  by  the  men  who  were  known  to 
have  raised  large  sums  to  found  it.  Certainly  Coleman 
until  after  1804  was  hardly  a  free  agent.  The  distinction 
and  prosperity  of  his  newspaper  depended  largely  upon 
Hamilton's  good  will.  He  gladly  served  the  statesman 
whom  he  called  "my  best  earthly  friend,  my  ablest  ad- 
viser, and  my  most  generous  and  disinterested  patron," 
but  he  had  no  real  alternative. 

Hamilton  bequeathed  to  the  Evening  Post  certain  prin^ 
ciples  which  guided  it  for  years  to  come.  The  Federalist 
party  In  the  nation  at  large  gradually  crumbled  away,  \ 
but  fortunately  for  the  Evening  Post,  It  remained  power- 
ful In  New  York  city  until  near  1820.  Until  the  close  of 
the  second  war  with  England,  a  majority  of  the  people 
of  the  city  held  Hamlltonlan  views.  The  primary  object 
of  Hamilton  was  to  establish  a  strong  national  sover- 
eignty, victorious  over  all  forms  of  disintegration.  His 
financial  policy,  which  embraced  insistence  upon  sound 
money,  and  adequate  revenues  without  dependence  either 
upon  the  States  or  Europe,  was  made  effective  while  he 
was  head  of  the  treasury.  The  commercial  policy  which 
he  favored  was  one  which  would  develop  manufacturing, 
by  a  judicious  protective  tariff,  to  a  parity  with  agricul- 
ture, and  make  the  nation  self-sufficient.  In  foreign  af- 
fairs, he  wished  the  United  States  to  steer  clear  of  Euro- 
pean intrigue,  and  as  he  feared  French  influence  more 
than  British,  he  tended  to  be  more  sympathetic  toward 
England.  The  Evening  Post  hence  steadfastly  opposed 
extreme  State  Rights  ideas,  even  when  some  New  Eng- 


34  THE  EVENING  POST 

land  Federalists  asserted  them  in  the  War  of  1 8 12.  It 
never  ceased  quoting  Hamilton  on  financial  questions, 
and  its  recollection  of  his  tariff  views  delayed  a  firm  op- 
position to  protection  until  Bryant  took  the  helm.  It 
opposed  the  identification  of  America  with  either  party 

tin  the  Napoleonic  struggle,  but  for  a  variety  of  reasons 
\X  supported  Great  Britain. 


CHAPTER  TWO 

THE  EVENING  POST  AS  LEADER  OF  THE  FEDERALIST  PRESS 

Editorial  pages  of  a  century  ago  bore  no  resemblance 
to  those  of  to-day.  Sometimes  no  editorial  at  all  would  be 
printed;  sometimes  only  a  few  scrappy  paragraphs;  some- 
times two  thousand  words  at  once.  Coleman  was  no  less 
addicted  than  others  to  those  series  of  numbered  edi- 
torials which,  dragging  their  slow  length  along  from  day 
to  day,  disappeared  with  Henry  Watterson.  This  was 
the  hey-day  of  the  pamphlet,  and  it  did  not  occur  to  most 
newspaper  conductors  that  they  could  state  an  opinion  on 
an  important  national  event  in  fewer  than  several  issues. 
Thus  just  after  the  Evening  Post  was  founded,  while 
Hamilton's  eighteen  articles  upon  Jefferson's  message 
were  being  slowly  run  off,  six  other  long  editorial  articles 
were  sandwiched  upon  the  repeal  of  certain  discriminatory 
duties.  The  public  had  hardly  finished  digesting  them 
when  there  ensued  six  upon  the  Georgia  cession  to  the 
United  States.  They  were  followed  by  a  series  of  twelve 
upon  Jefferson  and  Callender.  Frequently  no  effort  was 
made  to  give  unity  to  the  single  Instalment,  which  began 
and  ended  abruptly.  A  good  many  of  these  long  and 
ponderous  editorials  of  Jeffersonlan  days  would  have  been 
soporific  had  they  not  made  up  in  shrillness  what  they 
lacked  in  liveliness. 

Our  third  President  and  the  Evening  Post  stepped 
upon  the  stage  almost  simultaneously.  "Hamilton's 
gazette,"  said  travelers  from  the  South,  was  to  be  seen 
at  Monticello ;  while  the  Evening  Post  followed  Jefferson 
with  steady  hostility  as  he  came  forward  to  play  his  part, 
In  the  words  of  a  description  In  its  meager  news  columns : 

Dressed  in  long  boots,  with  tops  turned  down  about  the  ankles, 
like  a  Virginian  buck;  overalls  of  corduroy,  faded  by  frequent 

35 


36  THE  EVENING  POST 

immersions  in  soapsuds  from  a  yellow  to  a  dull  white;  a  red, 
single-breasted  waistcoat;  a  light  brown  coat  with  brass  buttons, 
both  coat  and  waistcoat  quite  threadbare;  linen  very  considerably 
soiled ;  hair  uncombed  and  beard  unshaven. 

Coleman's  most  unjustifiable  display  of  party  animos- 
ity occurred  when  his  promise  of  fairness  in  the  Evening 
Post's  prospectus  was  still  fresh  in  men's  minds.  In  the 
summer  of  1802  he  reprinted  from  the  Richmond  Re- 
corder the  treacherous  Callender's  attack  upon  the  per- 
sonal morals  of  the  President,  arousing  a  storm  of  protest. 
Much  of  this  storm  fell  upon  the  head  of  Hamilton,  and 
on  Sept.  29  Coleman  published  a  statement  that  Hamilton 
had  not  seen  the  attack  before  it  appeared.  Indeed, 
wrote  Coleman,  Hamilton  had  been  consulted  upon  only 
one  of  the  twelve  Jefferson-Callender  articles,  that  one 
Involving  constitutional  questions.  When  the  statesman 
saw  the  accusations,  he  had  expressed  regret,  for  "he 
declared  his  sentiments  to  be  averse  to  all  personalities, 
not  Immediately  connected  with  public  considerations." 
But  the  editor  did  not  take  his  lesson  to  heart.  From 
time  to  time  he  Indulged  In  outbursts  against  Jefferson 
of  a  character  which  we  can  comprehend  only  when  we 
recall  how  outrageously  even  Washington  had  been  vili- 
fied by  the  opposition  press.  Coleman  was  not  content 
with  harping  upon  Jefferson's  actual  humiliations  and 
errors,  as  his  flight  before  Tarleton  in  178 1  and  his  oppo- 
sition to  the  Constitution  In  1788.  He  accused  him  of 
trying  to  cheat  a  friend  out  of  a  debt,  and  repeated  the 
tale  of  a  black  harem.  In  1805  he  wrote:  "There  is  a 
point  of  profligacy  in  the  line  of  human  impudence,  at 
which  the  most  disguised  heart  seems  to  lose  all  sensi- 
bility to  shame;  and  we  congratulate- the  American  public 
that  our  chief  magistrate  has  so  completely  arrived  at  this 
enviable  point." 

However,  in  most  editorials  upon  national  affairs  the 
Evening  Post  displayed  a  breadth  and  coolness  reflecting 
the  sagacity  of  the  Federalist  leaders  who  helped  shape  its 
policy.  From  the  outset  it  pressed  the  FederaHst  con- 
tention that  everything  should  be  done  to  develop  a  mer- 


THE  FEDERALIST  PRESS  37 

chant  marine  and  a  strong  navy;  the  aggressions  of  the 
Barbary  pirates  being  frequently  cited  to  prove  the  ne- 
cessity for  the  latter.  The  Gallophile  craze  of  Democratic 
circles  was  attacked  week  in  and  week  out.  When  the 
claims  of  the  sufferers  by  French  spoliations  were  sur- 
rendered by  the  Administration,  the  indignation  of  the 
journal  was  outspoken.  The  destruction  of  most  of  the 
internal  revenue  system  which  Hamilton  had  laboriously 
built  up  was  a  cause  of  much  beating  of  the  breast.  Not 
merely  did  it  weaken  the  Federal  Government,  said  the 
Evening  Post;  the  nabob  Virginia  planter  was  given  his 
carriage  untaxed,  and  the  Western  backwoodsman  his 
whisky,  while  the  poor  Eastern  artisan  still  had  to  pay 
taxes  upon  his  sugar,  coffee,  and  salt.  The  pretensions  of 
Gallatin  to  rival  Hamilton  as  a  master  of  finance  were 
ridiculed.  The  repeal  of  the  judiciary  act  passed  under 
Adams  was  opposed  as  both  unconstitutional  and  inex- 
pedient. 

But  the  primary  achievement  of  Jefferson's  administra- 
tion, the  Louisiana  purchase,  was  treated  in  a  tone  so 
unlike  that  of  other  Federalist  journals  that  it  is  clear 
Hamilton  guided  Coleman's  pen.  That  noisy,  artificial 
denunciation  which  went  up  from  most  Federalists  was 
thoroughly  discreditable.  The  Evening  Post  admitted 
that  "it  is  an  important  acquisition" ;  that  it  was  "essen- 
tial to  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  our  western  country" ; 
that  it  opened  up  "a  free  and  valuable  market  to  our 
commercial  states" ;  and  that  "it  will  doubtless  give  eclat 
to  Jefferson's  Administration."  Of  course  it  did  its  best 
to  spit  into  the  Democratic  soup.  It  asserted  that  Jef- 
ferson merited  little  credit  for  the  purchase,  since  the 
fruit  was  knocked  into  his  lap  by  the  great  losses  of  the 
French  in  the  Dominican  insurrection,  and  by  the  constant 
threat  of  the  British  to  seize  Louisiana.  This  was  true, 
for  Jefferson  had  set  out  only  to  buy  an  island  for  a  dock- 
yard, and  had  been  momentarily  bewildered  when  Napo- 
leon offered  the  whole  western  domain.  No  one  at  that 
time  understood  the  real  value  of  the  purchase,  for  Loui- 
siana was  an  untraversed  land,  believed  to  be  largely 


38  THE  EVENING  POST 

desert.  Hence  it  is  not  surprising  to  find  the  Evening  Post 
asserting  that  the  region  was  worth  nothing  for  imme- 
diate settlement,  especially  since  not  one  sixteenth  the 
original  area  of  the  republic  was  yet  occupied;  and  that 
its  chief  use  might  well  be  as  something  to  barter  for  the 
Floridas,  "obviously  of  far  greater  value  to  us  than  all 
the  immensej  undefined  region  west  of  the  river." 

The  Evening  Post  could  not  miss  the  opportunity  to 
ridicule  Jefferson's  characteristic  exuberance.  The  Presi- 
dent, in  his  enthusiastic  message  to  Congress,  told  of  a 
tribe  of  giant  Indians,  of  river  bluffs  carved  into  antique 
towers,  of  prairie  lands  too  rich  to  produce  trees,  and, 
one  thousand  miles  up  the  Missouri,  of  a  vast  saline 
mountain,  "said  to  be  i8o  miles  long  and  45  in  width, 
composed  of  solid  rock  salt."  Coleman  descended  upon 
this  last  assertion: 

Lest,  however,  the  imagination  of  his  friends  in  Congress  might 
take  a  flight  to  the  mountain  and  find  salt  trees  there,  and  salt 
birds  and  beasts  too,  he  with  the  most  amiable  and  infantine 
simplicity,  adds  that  there  are  no  trees  or  even  shrubs  upon  it. 
La,  who  would  have  thought  it?  Methinks  such  a  great,  huge 
mountain  of  solid,  shining  salt  must  make  a  dreadful  glare  in  a 
clear  sunshiny  day,  especially  just  after  a  rain.  The  President 
tells  them  too  that  "the  salt  works  are  pretty  numerous,"  and 
that  salt  is  as  low  as  $1.50  a  bushel,  which  is  about  twice  as  high 
as  it  can  be  bought  in  New  York,  where  we  have  no  salt  mountain 
at  all.  .  .  .  We  think  it  would  have  been  no  more  than  fair 
in  the  traveler  who  informed  Mr.  Jefferson  of  this  territory  of 
solid  salt,  to  have  added  that  some  leagues  to  the  westward  of  it 
there  was  an  immense  lake  of  molasses,  and  that  between  this 
lake  and  the  mountain  of  salt,  there  was  an  extensive  vale  of 
hasty  pudding,  stretching  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach,  and  kept 
in  a  state  of  comfortable  eatability  by  the  sun's  rays,  into  which 
the  natives,  being  all  Patagonians,  waded  knee  deep,  whenever  they 
were  hungry,  and  helped  themselves  to  salt  with  one  hand  to  season 
their  pudding,  and  molasses  with  the  other  to  give  it  a  relish.  .  .  . 
Nothing  seems  wanting  this  affair  in  genuine  style  but  for  the 
House  to  "decree  it  with  applause." 

During  Jefferson's  second  administration  the  Evening 
Post  concentrated  its  fire  upon  his  foreign  policy.     By 


THE  FEDERALIST  PRESS  39 

the  begini;Ing  of  1807,  when  Coleman  published  a  long 
series  of  articles  reviewing  the  international  situation,  the 
great  struggle  raging  in  Europe  was  plainly  threatening 
to  involve  America.  He  accused  the  government  of  stud- 
ied unfriendliness  toward  Great  Britain.  He  held  that 
Jefferson  had  made  any  agreement  with  England  impos- 
sible, first,  by  dispatching  the  mediocre  Monroe  as  Min- 
ister to  London,  and  second,  by  causing  the  passage  in  the 
spring  of  1806  of  a  non-importation  measure  aimed  di- 
rectly at  the  British.  Why  had  the  Administration  been 
so  tame  toward  the  Spaniards,  who  had  actually  invaded 
American  soil  in  the  West,  and  tried  to  bribe  the  leading 
Kentuckians  to  be  traitors?  "Instead  of  framing  a  spir- 
ited remonstrance  to  Spain,  demanding  satisfaction  for 
the  repeated  injuries  she  has  done  us,  Jefferson  has  been 
able  to  go  quietly  into  his  study  and  amuse  himself  with 
pleasing  reveries  about  the  prairie  dogs  and  horned  frogs 
of  the  Missouri."  Above  all,  why  had  the  government 
been  so  compliant  toward  Napoleon? 

Napoleon,  by  the  Berlin  Decree  of  November,  1806, 
had  declared  that  no  ship  which  touched  at  an  Enghsh 
port  should  be  admitted  to  a  port  of  France  or  her  allies; 
the  British,  by  an  Order  in  Council  of  January,  1807, 
had  tried  to  close  all  French  ports  to  neutrals.  Coleman 
regarded  both  acts  as  outrageous,  but  centered  his  attack 
upon  the  Berlin  decree.  Napoleon,  as  he  said,  was  the 
primary  aggressor,  and  the  British  step  could  be  palliated 
as  one  of  mere  retaliation.  "Our  administration  .  .  . 
were  bound  in  duty  to  their  constituents  to  have  imme- 
diately sent  a  spirited  remonstrance  to  Paris  against  the 
Berlin  Decree,  as  being  not  only  a  violation  of  the  known 
and  established  law  of  nations,  but  a  direct  and  flagrant 
breach  of  the  existing  treaty  between  the  two  countries. 
And  if  such  remonstrance  failed  in  obtaining  from  the 
French  Government  an  explicit  exception  of  the  United 
States  from  the  operation  of  the  Decree,  the  course  that 
was  formerly  adopted  by  the  Federalist  administration, 
in  1798,  should  have  been  again  adopted — ships  of  war 
should  have  been  Immediately  equipped,  and  our  mer- 


40  THE  EVENING  POST 

chantmen  permitted  to  arm  for  the  protection  of  our 
trade."  This  position  Coleman  maintained  throughout 
1807.  When  the  Administration  tried  to  make  the 
Order  in  Council  more  odious  by  declaring  that  the 
French  had  not  put  the  Berlin  Decree  Into  effect  before 
the  British  acted,  the  editor  flatly  contradicted  It.  He 
supported  his  contradiction  by  evidence  from  John  B. 
Murray,  a  Federalist  merchant  who  did  an  Immense  ship- 
ping business  from  the  foot  of  Beekman  Street,  and  others 
who  had  suffered  from  the  French  seizures. 

But  worse  foreign  encroachments  were  to  come.  Late 
in  1807  news  arrived  that  a  fresh  British  Order  in  Council 
had  been  issued,  requiring  all  neutral  vessels  trading  at 
ports  closed  to  the  British  to  stop  at  an  English  port  and 
pay  a  duty,  and  to  repeat  this  stop  on  the  return  voyage ; 
while  from  Paris  came  word  that  Napoleon  had  told  our 
Minister  "there  should  no  longer  be  any  such  thing  as 
a  neutral  nation."  Napoleon  answered  the  new  British 
Order  by  his  Milan  Decree,  declaring  that  any  ship  which 
paid  a  tax  in  a  British  port  might  at  any  time  thereafter 
be  seized  In  French  waters.  It  was  difficult  for  an  Amer- 
ican to  say  a  word  for  either  combatant.  Coleman  ad- 
mitted that  the  British  action  "carries  something  on  the 
face  of  it  humiliating  to  our  national  pride."  But  he 
continued  so  far  as  possible  to  defend  the  English,  and 
attacked  the  French  with  increasing  zeal. 

This  policy  did  not  cause  him  to  condone  the  attack  of 
the  Leopard  upon  the  Chesapeake^  which  stirred  even 
Federalist  New  York  as  nothing  since  the  surrender  of 
Cornwallis.  It  will  be  recalled  that  the  British  Minister 
requested  the  surrender  of  three  men  who  had  deserted 
from  an  English  warship  Into  the  Chesapeake;  that  Jef- 
ferson refused;  and  that  the  Leopard  followed  the  Chesa- 
peake from  Hampton  Roads  out  to  sea,  poured  a  heavy 
fire  Into  her,  compelled  her  to  strike  colors,  and  took  the 
three  men  by  force.  The  Evening  Post  flared  up  In  com- 
mon with  all  other  patriotic  organs.  It  condemned  the 
attack  as  an  indefensible  outrage.  It  demanded  prompt 
and  drastic  action,  and  the  editor's  one  fear  was  that 


THE  FEDERALIST  PRESS  41 

Jefferson  would  not  resent  the  Injury  with  proper  vigor. 
It  would  be  a  mistake,  wrote  Coleman,  simply  to  call  upon 
the  British  Government  for  disavowal  of  the  dastardly 
assault,  and  for  trial  of  the  offenders.  The  British  would 
grant  the  disavowal,  summon  a  court  martial,  and  acquit 
the  guilty  naval  officers.  No,  Congress  must  be  convened, 
intercourse  suspended,  an  embargo  laid,  and  then,  if  Eng- 
land wished  to  negotiate,  she  could  humbly  send  her 
envoys  to  us.  In  the  meantime,  the  coast  should  be  forti- 
fied, and  steps  should  be  taken  to  give  the  nation  frigates 
instead  of  Jefferson's  useless  gunboats.  For  weeks  Cole- 
man harped  upon  this  string: 

We  entertain  respect  for  Great  Britain ;  it  is  the  land  that  gave 
birth  to  our  ancestors,  and  we  feel  an  attachment  to  the  soil  that 
covers  their  bones;  we  venerate  her  institutions;  we  look  with 
anxiety  upon  the  struggle  in  which  she  is  now  engaged  for  self- 
preservation  ;  we  hope  she  will  maintain  her  independence  unin- 
jured, and  that  it  will  yet  be  long,  very  long,  before  the  sun 
of  her  glory  will  begin  his  descent  to  the  west  with  diminished 
luster;  but  we  can  never  behold  with  a  criminal  indifference  the 
ill-judged,  the  unwarrantable  attempts  of  an  unwise  ministry  to 
trench  upon  the  perfect  rights  of  other  nations;  especially  of  one 
which  both  interest  and  inclination  strongly  unite  to  render 
friendly  to  her.  .  .  .  We  shall  always  stand  ready  to  raise  our 
feeble  voice  and  call  upon  the  patriotism  of  our  countrymen  to 
rouse  and  resist  them. 

Four  years  later  occurred  the  encounter  between  the 
President  and  Little  Belt.  The  former  vessel  had  been 
sent  out  from  Annapolis  to  demand  from  the  Guerriere 
the  surrender  of  a  seaman  whom  the  British  were  said 
to  have  impressed.  It  encountered  instead  a  ship  which 
showed  no  colors,  and  which  it  overtook  just  at  night- 
fall. The  unknown  craft  refused  to  answer  the  American 
hail;  shots  were  exchanged — both  captains  later  claimed 
to  have  been  fired  upon  first;  and  at  daybreak  the  Presi- 
dent found  that  it  had  cut  to  pieces  a  little  British  cor- 
vette of  half  its  strength.  Again  the  general  excitement 
was  intense.  The  Evening  Post  admitted  that  people 
were  too  inflamed  to  listen  to  a  cool  discussion  of  laws 


42  THE  EVENING  POST 

and  propriety.  But  in  this  instance  it  inclined  to  the 
British  view.  Not  only  did  Coleman  maintain  that  the 
President  had  been  sent  out  with  indefensible  orders, 
being  instructed  to  reclaim  the  impressed  sailor  by  force 
if  necessary;  he  held  that  the  Little  Belt  had  been  justi- 
fied in  requiring  the  American  ship  to  reveal  its  identity 
first,  inasmuch  as  the  Little  Belt  was  exposed  to  a  surprise 
attack  by  a  French  cruiser. 

As  the  leading  spokesman  for  the  commercial  com- 
munity in  New  York,  the  Evening  Post  of  course  bitterly 
opposed  the  embargo.  This  stoppage  of  all  foreign 
trade  stunned  the  city.  The  day  after  the  news  came, 
Coleman  referred  to  the  universal  "uncertainty,  apprehen- 
sion, dismay,  and  distress,"  in  which  "every  one  is  running 
eagerly  to  his  neighbor  to  inquire  after  information." 
He  declared  that  it  would  bankrupt  the  merchants,  and 
reduce  thousands  of  laboring  men  to  starvation.  What! 
no  more  ships  to  leave  any  Manhattan  slips,  no  more 
barges  of  grain  to  drop  down  the  Hudson  for  foreign 
marts,  no  more  droves  of  hogs  and  herds  of  cattle  to  be 
driven  through  Westchester  for  slaughtering  and  con- 
signment abroad?  The  editor  hastened  to  write  a  sting- 
ing article,  and  then,  after  consulting  leading  Federalists, 
put  it  aside  in  favor  of  an  unsigned  series  by  Rufus  King. 

It  was  pointed  out  that  the  embargo  meant  a  direct 
loss  of  fifty  millions  a  year,  a  sum  that  would  build  a  navy 
amply  sufficient  to  protect  American  rights  at  sea  from 
France  and  Great  Britain.  The  Evening  Post  painted 
a  highly  colored  picture  of  the  ruin  of  the  city's  shippers 
and  wholesalers,  the  distress  of  shipwrights,  shopkeepers, 
clerks,  and  cartmen,  and  the  despair  of  Hudson  Valley 
jfarmers.  It  ridiculed  the  notion  that  the  embargo  was 
a  valuable  implement  for  negotiation  with  England.  The 
British  markets  were  well  supplied,  and  Britons  were 
secretly  rejoicing  that  the  new  American  policy  gave  them 
a  monopoly  of  the  world's  commerce.  "Why  is  the 
United  States  like  a  pig  swimming?"  asked  Coleman. 
"Because  it  cuts  its  own  throat."  The  embargo  certainly 
had  no  such  effect  abroad  as  its  sponsors  hoped.     From 


THE  FEDERALIST  PRESS  43 

France  It  brought  only  the  Bayonne  decree,  by  which 
more  than  two  hundred  American  ships  were  seized  In 
French-controlled  waters — an  outrage  of  which  the 
Evening  Post  made  much;  In  England  the  shipping  and 
farming  Interests  were  greatly  benefited.  As  Rufus  King 
predicted,  it  not  only  threw  whole  business  communities 
Into  bankruptcy,  but  emptied  the  national  treasury  and 
depleted  the  strength  of  the  nation.  When  the  spring 
election  came  on,  the  Post  announced  a  motto  for  Fed- 
eralists which  might  have  been  made  into  the  first  Amer- 
ican party  platform:  "No  Embargo — No  Foreign  In- 
fluences— No  Mystery — Freedom  of  Debate — Freedom 
of  Suffrage — Freedom  of  Navigation  and  Trade — Lib- 
erty and  Independence." 

Right  as  the  Evening  Post  and  other  Federalist  sheets 
were  upon  the  main  issue,  they  were  not  always  quite  fair. 
They  consistently  held  that  Jefferson  was  keeping  the 
object  of  the  embargo  secret, 

But  though  this  in  its  operation 
May  scatter  ruin  through  the  nation 
And  starve  the  mouth  of  ragged  labor, 
Or  bankrupt  his  rich  merchant-neighbor, 
It  must  be  endured  without  one  moan, 
Its  causes  and  object  both  unknown! 

while  they  never  tired  of  capitalizing  Thomas  Palne's  In- 
discreet statement  In  the  Public  Advertiser  that  the  em- 
bargo was  really  preparatory  to  war  with  England.  Yet 
it  was  plain  to  the  blindest  that  the  measure  was  a  des- 
perate, almost  despairing,  effort  to  avoid  war.  Again, 
the  Evening  Post  accused  the  South  and  Southwest  of 
sheer  heartlessness.  Jefferson  cared  not  who  starved  at 
the  North;  he  had  saved  a  fortune  from  his  salary,  and 
could  feed  his  negroes  herring  as  well  as  hominy.  "Who 
Is  Macon?"  demanded  Coleman  when  that  leader  sup- 
ported legislation  for  preventing  violations  of  the  em- 
bargo. "A  man  who  lives  on  the  frontier  of  North  Caro- 
lina ;  who  can  send  out  his  negroes  to  provide  for  him  his 
venison  and  his  wild  turkey;  who  raises  his  own  hominy 
and  grows  his  own  cotton  by  the  sweat  of  his  hundred 


44  THE  EVENING  POST 

slaves,  and  who  I  suppose  feels  just  about  as  much  sym- 
pathy for  the  millions  of  people  in  the  Eastern  States,  at 
whom  he  levels  his  death-doing  blow,  as  the  Bashaw  of 
Tripoli."  Yet  the  South  suffered  in  the  long  run  more 
than  the  North,  where  manufactures  speedily  began  to 
arise,  and  Jefferson  saw  his  property  in  Virginia  alarm- 
ingly impaired. 

Until  the  last  the  Evening  Post  struggled  against  war 
with  England,  but  it  saw  clearly  that  it  was  coming.  As 
early  as  1807  its  W^ashington  correspondent,  probably 
one  of  the  Federalist  Congressmen  from  New  York, 
stated  that  a  Cabinet  officer  had  told  him  that  the  country 
would  have  to  choose  between  war  with  England  or  with 
France,  and  that  England  would  probably  be  selected. 
In  1 8 10  the  editor  himself  wrote  that  America  could  not 
remain  at  peace  with  both  belligerents,  "and  it  is  very 
clear  how  the  country  will  decide."  The  journal  opposed 
the  Macon  bill  in  18 10,  permitting  importation  and  ex- 
portation only  in  American  bottoms,  as  involving  certain 
retaliation  from  Great  Britain.  It  kept  its  two  or  three 
short  news  columns  garnished  with  paragraphs  upon  the 
many  American  seamen  languishing  in  French  prisons 
since  the  Bayonne  Decree.  Thus  in  1808,  giving  a  long 
account  of  the  mistreatment  of  two  skippers  from  the  city, 
Captains  Palmer  and  Waterman,  the  editor  exclaimed: 
"My  blood  boils  in  my  veins."  The  next  year  he  re- 
produced a  pitiful  letter  from  a  tar  confined  at  Arras, 
compelled  to  subsist  on  a  franc  a  day,  and  burst  out: 
"Would  you  rest  so  silent  and  tame  under  a  thousandth 
part  as  much  from  Great  Britain?  You  know  you  would 
not."  He  wanted  an  instant  rupture  of  relations  with 
France.  The  military  tyranny  which  Napoleon  spread 
over  unwilling  nations  of  Europe  was  attacked  in  fitting 
terms,  and  we  find  the  French  cruelties  in  the  Peninsular 
campaign  dwelt  upon  at  length.  When  in  1808  Napoleon 
strengthened  his  alliance  with  the  Russian  Emperor,  Cole- 
man demanded:  "Shall  we  join  the  confederacy  against 
England,  the  only  free  and  independent  nation  left  in 
Europe?" 


THE  FEDERALIST  PRESS  45 

There  was  a  fitful  gleam  of  sunshine  in  1809,  when  the 
British  Minister,  Erskine,  announced  that  the  Orders  in 
Council  would  be  withdrawn;  but  the  clouds  closed  in 
again  when  it  appeared  that  he  had  exceeded  his  instruc- 
tions. Coleman,  examining  these  instructions  at  length, 
blamed  Erskine  harshly  for  this  disappointment  to  Ameri- 
can hopes,  but  not  the  British  Government.  Like  other 
Federahst  organs,  the  Evening  Post  regarded  the  dis- 
missal of  the  next  British  envoy,  Jackson,  as  "frivolous 
and  unfounded,"  saying  that  "no  public  Minister  was  ever 
so  shamefully  dealt  with."  Helped  by  King  and  others, 
Coleman  bestowed  great  labor  upon  a  series  of  articles 
dealing  with  the  Jackson  episode,  which  he  flattered  him- 
self would  have  more  than  ephemeral  value.  The  Secre- 
tai^y  of  State,  Robert  Smith,  gave  particular  notice  to  this 
series.  Coleman  rejoiced  over  the  manner  in  which  other 
Federalist  sheets  caught  up  and  echoed  his  points.  The 
Boston  Repertory^  he  said,  is  "always  ready,  independent, 
correct,  and  able";  Dwight's  Mirror  in  Connecticut 
"shines  preeminent";  in  New  Jersey  the  Trenton  Fed- 
eralist was  a  firm  ally;  in  Philadelphia  the  United  States 
Gazette,  long  alone,  was  now  supported  by  the  Freeman^ s 
Journal  and  the  True  American,  while  the  Baltimore 
Federal  Republican  and  the  Virginia  Patriot  had  been 
active.  All  these  journals  recognized  in  the  Evening  Post 
the  voice  of  King,  Gouverneur  Morris,  and  Col.  Varick. 

It  became  evident  late  in  181 1  that  the  paper's  long 
fight  was  lost.  In  reply  to  a  war  article  by  Duane,  Cole- 
man in  a  paragraph  of  deep  pessimism  admitted  as  much: 

We  have  not,  we  never  had,  but  one  opinion  respecting  our 
public  ffairs  with  Great  Britain;  no  differences  will  ever  be 
brought  to  a  termination;  no  negotiations  for  that  purpose  will 
ever  be  seriously  entered  upon,  while  Madison,  or  any  other  man 
in  Virginia,  is  President.  All  who  entertain  difFerent  views  or 
different  hopes,  will  find  themselves  wofully  mistaken.  And  if 
war  must  come,  why  not  the  sooner  the  better?  I  am  free  to 
confess,  that  I  think  a  breeze  from  any  quarter  is  better  than  that 
stagnant  and  sickly  atmosphere  which  we  have  breathed  so  long, 
and  which  must,  sooner  or  later,  bring  with  it  pestilence  and 


46  THE  EVENING  POST 

death.  It  is  the  violent  storm,  the  tremendous  hurricane,  with 
hailstone,  thunder,  and  lightning,  which  cools  and  purifies  the  air, 
reanimates  the  face  of  nature,  and  restores  life  to  pristine  vigor 
and  health. 

There  was  in  this  statement  almost  the  force  of 
prophecy.  The  war  actually  had  just  the  benefits  it  fore- 
shadowed. It  cleared  a  sultry,  oppressive  atmosphere, 
brought  new  and  vital  forces  in  national  life  into  play,  and 
gave  Americans  a  unity  and  self-confidence  they  had  not 
felt  before.  But  this  note  was  of  course  not  struck  again. 
As  the  country  moved  steadily  toward  war  in  the  spring 
of  1812,  it  was  with  the  Evening  Post  denouncing  Clay, 
the  chief  of  the  "war  hawks,"  as  a  liar  and  demagogue; 
accusing  the  government  of  deliberate  misrepresentation 
when  it  said  that  the  Napoleonic  decrees  were  no  longer 
being  enforced;  and  calling  for  public  meetings  in  New 
York  to  protest  against  the  drift  to  hostilities.  When 
In  April  an  effort  was  made  to  float  the  "Gallatin  Loan," 
Coleman  did  all  that  he  could  to  discredit  It.  There 
was  no  security,  he  said;  the  Interest  rate,  six  per  cent., 
was  too  low.  "As  It  will  very  much  depend  upon  the 
filling  up  of  the  loan  whether  we  shall  or  shall  not  go  to 
war.  It  Is  evident  that  no  man  who  Is  averse  to  that 
calamity  can  ever,  consistently,  lend  his  assistance  to  the 
government  to  plunge  us  into  It." 

The  great  majority  of  men  of  property  In  the  city 
were  with  the  Evening  Post  In  Its  opposition;  so  were 
most  of  the  lawyers,  the  faculty  of  Columbia  College, 
the  pastors  of  the  leading  churches,  and  professional  men 
In  general.     On  June  15,  four  days  before  the  declara- 
tion of  war,  the  Evening  Post  published  a  memorial  of 
I  protest  signed  by  fifty-six  principal  merchants,  John  Jacob 
I  Astor  heading  the  list.     It  Is  clear  that  the  Evening  Post 
1  was  at  all  times  In  close  touch  with  commercial  sentiment. 
'   In  April  It  said  that  the  best-informed  men  in  town  cal- 
culated  the   amount   of  American   shipping   and  goods 
within  British  reach  abroad,  and  liable  to  confiscation,  at 
$100,000,000.    All  seaport  towns,  It  added,  were  exposed 
to  bombardment  and  destruction  by  the  British  seventy- 


THE  FEDERALIST  PRESS  47 

fours.  Coleman  but  expressed  the  fears  of  the  counting 
rooms  along  lower  Broadway  and  the  rich  shopkeepers  of 
Pearl  Street  when  he  assured  New  Yorkers  that  the 
State  would  be  undone.  "This  portion  of  the  country 
will,"  he  warned,  "on  account  of  its  wealth  and  the  easy 
access  to  it  by  water,  become  the  seat  of  war;  and  our 
defenseless  situation  will  subject  us,  in  the  case  of  a  few 
years  war,  to  a  desolation  which  a  half  century  cannot 


II 

Twice  has  the  Evening  Post  opposed  with  passionate 
detestation,  from  beginning  to  end,  an  American  war. 
The  two  editors  responsible,  Coleman  and  E.  L.  Godkin, 
were  as  far  as  D'Artagnan  from  being  weak-kneed  pacif- 
ists. Both  in  their  youth  had  shouldered  arms ;  both  were 
of  Anglo-Irish  blood,  with  a  Celtic  inclination  toward 
battle;  both  went  through  life  joyfully  snuffing  new  frays 
from  afar.  It  is  well  at  this  point,  with  Coleman 
taking  the  leadership  of  all  the  anti-war  journals  south  of 
the  Connecticut,  to  stop  a  moment  to  note  what  were  his 
personal  qualities,  as  shown  in  his  editorship,  and  what 
the  conditions  of  his  work.  The  old-time  journalist  did 
not  speak  softly,  and  carried  a  big  stick.  Coleman  had  as 
much  need  as  the  rest  to  learn  the  use  of  dueling  pistols, 
and  to  know  how  to  graze  the  libel  laws.  "He  was 
naturally  courageous,"  says  Bryant,  "and  having  entered 
into  a  dispute,  he  never  sought  to  decline  any  of  its  con- 
sequences." 

We  have  noted  that  when  Philip  Hamilton  was  killed, 
the  editor  condemned  dueling  as  barbarous,  and  called 
for  a  rigid  legislation  against  it.  Yet  in  1803  he  was 
himself  provoked  into  a  duel.  The  previous  autumn 
^Cheetham  had  in  an  indirect,  cowardly  fashion  charged 
him  with  the  paternity  of  a  mulatto  child  in  Greenfield,  a 
charge  which  Coleman  had  no  difficulty  in  showing  utterly 
false,  but  which  he  resented  by  a  challenge.  Cheetham 
accepted.  News  of  the  impending  encounter  got  abroad, 
and  Judge  Brockholst  Livingston  immediately  issued  a 


48  THE  EVENING  POST 

bench  warrant,  compelled  the  appearance  of  the  two  edi- 
tors before  him,  and  allowed  them  to  depart  only  after 
they  had  engaged  not  to  use  more  deadly  weapons  than 
pen  and  ink.  Unfortunately,  one  Captain  Thompson, 
an  ardent  Democrat,  accused  Coleman  of  letting  the 
secret  of  the  duel  escape,  and  of  having  been  animated 
by  a  cowardly  motive.  Coleman  promptly  challenged 
the  fire-eating  captain,  and  early  in  the  new  year  the  pair 
fought  in  Love  Lane,  a  sequestered  road,  then  well  out- 
side the  city,  which  followed  the  present  line  of  Twenty- 
first  Street  between  Sixth  and  Eighth  Avenues.  It  was 
dusk  of  a  cold  winter's  day  when  they  met,  with  snow 
falling  and  other  circumstances  uniting,  as  a  second 
quaintly  observed,  to  make  the  affair  "uncomfortable." 
They  fired  two  shots  at  ten  paces,  and  then,  darkness  com- 
ing down,  moved  closer  and  fired  two  more.  Thompson, 
exclaiming  "I've  got  it!"  sank  mortally  wounded  into  the 
arms  of  his  physician.  Dr.  McLean.  He  was  carried  to 
his  sister's  house  in  town,  was  laid  on  the  doorstep,  the 
bell  was  rung,  and  the  family  found  him  bleeding  and  near 
death.  He  refused  to  tell  who  had  shot  him,  or  to  give 
any  evidence  whatever  regarding  the  duel,  saying  that 
everything  had  been  honorably  done — and  his  antagonist 
must  not  be  molested. 

Coleman  had  repeated  encounters  of  a  less  serious 
character.  In  the  Evening  Post  of  January  12,  1807,  he 
begged  the  public  to  discredit  Cheetham's  "account  of  the 
fracas  on  Saturday  between  Dr.  Walker  and  myself," 
as  it  was  full  of  errors,  but  he  did  not  offer  the  correct 
particulars  himself.  In  18 10  blows  were  struck  when  his 
vote  was  challenged  and  he  was  insulted  at  the  polls  by 
a  tavern-keeper  who  said  that  Coleman  could  not  be  a 
citizen  because  he  had  published  the  statement,  "I  had 
rather  be  a  dog  and  bay  the  moon  than  own  myself  an 
American."  This  was  a  Democratic  garbling  of  a  half- 
sentence  in  one  of  the  Post's  editorials. 

Early  in  18 18  the  editor  published  a  narrative  of  the 
misconduct  of  a  certain  Democrat  named  Henry  B.  Ha- 
german  while  travehng  as  a  Judge  Advocate  up-State. 


THE  FEDERALIST  PRESS  49 

Hagerman  stopped  at  a  Kingston  hotel,  kept  by  an  esti- 
mable widow,  and  for  some  fancied  grievance  insulted 
her  so  grossly  that  no  newspaper  of  to-day  would  print 
the  details  which  Coleman  laid  before  the  public.  On 
the  evening  of  April  1 1  Coleman  was  overtaken  by  Hager- 
man near  sunset  at  the  corner  of  Murray  and  Church 
Streets,  and  attacked  without  warning  from  the  rear. 
His  assailant  used  the  loaded  butt  of  a  rawhide  whip. 
The  editor  was  stunned  by  the  first  blow,  was  repeatedly 
struck  and  kicked  as  he  lay  prostrate,  and  when  he  stag- 
gered to  his  feet,  half  blind  with  blood,  was  given  a  still 
more  savage  beating.  Public  indignation  against  Hager- 
man rose  so  high  that  he  was  hurried  to  jail  for  safety, 
and  not  being  able  to  ask  for  a  change  of  venue,  pleaded 
for  postponement  of  his  trial  until  it  subsided.  Two  years 
to  a  day  after  the  murderous  attack,  Coleman  was 
awarded  $4,000  in  damages,  a  huge  sum  for  1820.  But 
it  was  none  too  large.  The  editor  had  been  prostrated 
for  weeks,  recurrent  strokes  of  paralysis  followed,  and 
he  was  never  in  sound  health  again. 

The  physical  violence  to  which  editors  were  then  ex- 
posed harmonized  with  a  violence  of  temper  and  manner 
which  was  far  too  prominent  in  journalism,  as  in  politics. 
In  noting  this  abusiveness  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
press  was  the  product  and  mirror  of  its  time.  Politics  was 
conducted  with  far  more  scurrility  and  coarseness  than 
now,  and  the  newspapers  were  largely  an  appendage  of 
politics.  A  day  of  backwoods  gouging  and  fashionable 
dueling,  of  constant  fighting  between  street  gangs  in  all 
the  large  cities,  of  fisticuffs  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  of  a  low  standard  of  manners  every- 
where, was  not  a  day  for  refined  newspaper  methods.  It 
took  time  for  editors  to  learn  that  hard  reasons  do  more 
execution  than  hard  names.  Editors,  moreover,  were 
prone  to  set  up  medieval  conventions;  they  regarded 
themselves  as  so  many  knights  errant,  roaming  the  land 
for  battle,  no  sooner  seeing  a  strange  crest  than  they  gal- 
loped to  shiver  lances. 

It  is  usual  to  quote  Coleman's  quatrain 


50  THE  EVENING  POST 

Lie  on,  Duane,  lie  on  for  pay, 
And  Cheetham,  lie  thou  too, 
More  'gainst  truth  you  cannot  say 
Than  truth  can  say  'gainst  you, 

as  a  bold  specimen  of  the  editorial  amenities  of  a  cen- 
tury ago.  But  Coleman  went  far  beyond  the  lie  direct 
and  countercheck  quarrelsome.  The  American  public 
has  always  refused  to  take  at  face  value  the  epithets  which 
editors  exchange,  and  doubtless  in  Jefferson's  time  it  put 
a  Pickwickian  construction  upon  them.  Referring  to  the 
most  prominent  Democratic  editor,  Coleman  once  quoted 
Milton's  line,  "Squat  like  a  toad  at  the  ear  of  Eve,"  add- 
ing: "I  beg  the  devil's  pardon  for  comparing  him  in  any 
shape  with  Duane."  Of  Cheetham  he  said  that  he  was 
so  habituated  to  lying  that  given  a  choice  of  truth  and 
mendacity  he  invariably  preferred  the  latter,  and  on  an- 
other occasion  he  listed  twenty-five  lies  In  a  single  article 
by  "the  President's  unlucky  toad-eater." 

Coleman  thought  nothing  of  referring  to  Dr.  Peter 
Irving,  head  of  the  Morning  Chronicle,  as  a  "malevolent 
coxcomb,"  and  to  his  partner  as  "a  pedant  and  black- 
guard." Other  journals  fared  no  better.  When  the 
Public  Advertiser,  a  new  Clintonian  organ,  libeled  the 
Evening  Post,  Coleman  denounced  Its  "villainy"  and  chal- 
lenged the  "vile  reptiles"  editing  it  to  produce  their  evi- 
dence. The  conductor  of  the  Long  Island  Star  also  fell 
afoul  of  the  Evening  Post.  "This  Kirk  I  have  always 
despised  as  a  flippant,  conceited,  shallow  fellow,"  wrote 
Coleman,  "but  I  did  not  take  him  for  so  great  a  fool  as 
his  nonsense  shows  him  to  be,  nor  think  him  so  black- 
hearted and  malignant  a  calumniator."  In  1806  he 
termed  Samuel  H.  Smith  of  the  Washington  National 
Intelligencer,  the  so-called  "court  journal"  of  Jefferson, 
"the  little  monkey."  Nine  years  later,  when  the  era  of 
good  feeling  was  commencing,  he  prided  himself  upon  his 
repression  In  speaking  of  the  same  able  newspaper,  in  the 
columns  of  which  Clay  had  been  glad  to  appear:  "I  shall 
take  no  other  notice  of  the  charge  In  that  profligate  paper 


THE  FEDERALIST  PRESS  51 

than  to  say  I  have  long  observed  there  is  no  misrepresenta- 
tion too  base,  no  violation  of  truth  too  palpable,  not  to 
be  gladly  adopted  and  circulated  by  that  infamous  organ." 

Be  it  said  to  Coleman's  credit  that  these  examples  are 
the  worst  to  be  selected  from  the  files  for  fifteen  years, 
during  which  the  issues  of  the  Aurora  and  American  Citi- 
zen teemed  with  such  expressions.  Moreover,  there  was 
some  justification  for  them.  Cheetham,  and  to  a  less 
extent  Duane,  were  unabashed  liars;  Peter  Irving  was  so 
much  of  a  coxcomb  that  even  his  friends  called  him  "sissie 
Irving" ;  and  Kirk  certainly  was  a  calumniator.  Most 
creditable  of  all  to  Coleman,  he  refrained  from  dastardly 
slanders  upon  the  private  life  of  his  contemporaries, 
whereas  they  gave  him  no  such  consideration.  In  1807 
he  declared  his  conviction  that  Duane  was  in  receipt  of 
French  gold,  and  many  years  later  accused  M.  M.  Noah, 
the  famous  Jewish  journalist,  of  avowing  himself  open  to 
a  money  bribe  from  the  Clintonian  faction,  but  he  said 
nothing  of  the  conduct  of  any  such  man  apart  from  his 
editorial  office.  Yet  his  own  enemies  fabricated  a  story 
that  he  had  been  dismissed  from  the  Vermont  bar  be- 
cause he  had  bored  a  hole  in  a  courthouse  ceiling  to  over- 
hear rival  counsel,  and  accused  him  of  illegally  convert- 
ing the  funds  of  Greenfield  neighbors  to  his  own  uses. 

It  is  not  strange  that  when  the  press  was  filled  with 
this  sort  of  utterance,  libel  suits  were  numerous.  Cheet- 
ham at  the  beginning  of  1804  had  fourteen  actions  pend- 
ing against  him,  and  in  1807  admitted  that  the  total 
damages  which  he  had  been  compelled  to  pay  reached 
almost  $4,000.  Aaron  Burr  had  brought  one  of  these 
suits,  while  ex-Mayor  Varick  in  1803  had  obtained  a 
judgment  of  $200.  It  is  evidence  of  the  comparatively 
moderate  tone  of  the  Evening  Post  that  no  suit  against 
it  ever  succeeded,  though  a  number  were  begun.  One  of 
these  actions  was  brought  by  Robert  Macomb,  clerk  of 
the  Sessions  Court,  whom  Coleman  had  accused  of  taking 
illegal  fees,  and  another  by  a  politician  named  Arcularius. 


52  THE  EVENING  POST 

III 

When  war  was  actually  declared  in  June,  1812,  this 
belligerent  editor,  like  most  New  York  merchants,  like 
four  men  in  five  throughout  New  England,  believed  that 
it  meant  the  bootless  ruin  of  trade  and  agriculture.  It 
had  come  with  such  final  suddenness,  he  said,  that  Ameri- 
can ships  in  European  waters  would  almost  all  be  taken 
by  British  cruisers.  It  was  professedly  a  war  for  free- 
dom of  the  sea;  in  reality  the  shipping  States  believed,  as 
Coleman  put  it,  that  it  grew  out  of  "the  Southern  anti- 
commercial  spirit." 

De  Witt  Clinton,  the  ambitious  mayor,  who  was  court- 
ing the  help  of  King,  John  Wells,  and  the  Evening  Post 
in  his  aspirations  for  the  Federalist  nomination  against 
Madison  that  summer,  told  Coleman  that  he  believed 
ninety-nine  men  in  every  hundred  in  the  city  really  were 
opposed  to  the  war.  The  editor  was  highly  sarcastic  in 
his  references  to  the  local  Democrats  as  "fellow  subjects 
of  our  loving  Emperor  Napoleon,"  and  in  those  to  "Mon- 
sieurs  Gallatin  and  Madison."  For  a  few  weeks,  while  an 
alliance  with  France  was  thought  a  possibility,  the  £1;^- 
ning  Post  steadily  declaimed  against  it.  A  war  with 
Great  Britain,  fought  single-handed,  "will  be  neither  a 
predatory  war  nor  a  bloody  war,"  it  said;  but  if  France 
sends  her  squadrons  to  the  American  coast,  British  fleets 
will  follow,  and  the  seaport  towns  will  suffer.  When 
Daniel  Webster,  a  young  man  of  thirty  almost  unknown 
outside  New  Hampshire,  delivered  a  Fourth  of  July  ora- 
tion denouncing  any  cooperation  with  France,  he  was 
fervently  praised. 

New  Yorkers  were  fearful  of  two  perils:  a  British 
invasion  across  the  St.  Lawrence  or  Niagara  Rivers,  and 
bombardments  by  sea.  "We  are  fighting  the  world's 
greatest  Power,"  protested  Coleman,  "without  the  means 
of  annoyance  or  even  defense."  He  told  his  readers,  in- 
correctly, that  the  frigate  Constitution  was  sent  from 
Norfolk  to  Boston  with  only  two  rounds  of  cannonballs; 
and  correctly,  that  Fort  Niagara,  on  an  "exposed  and 


THE  FEDERALIST  PRESS  53 

utterly  defenseless  frontier,"  had  scarcely  powder  enough 
for  a  Fourth  of  July  salute. 

For  armaments  at  sea  the  Evening  Post  was  always  elo- 
quent, but  it  took  a  different  attitude  toward  the  bustle 
of  preparations  to  invade  Canada.  When  President 
Madison  requested  the  Governors  to  place  the  militia  at 
his  disposal,  Coleman  applauded  the  New  England  execu- 
tives who  refused.  Conjuring  up  a  vision  of  a  harsh  mili- 
tary despotism,  he  pronounced  the  President's  action  one 
'^highly  dangerous  to  the  liberties  of  the  people,  and  to 
our  republican  form  of  government."  In  editorial  after 
editorial,  moreover,  he  discouraged  recruiting  for  Fed- 
eral regiments.  Are  you  willing,  he  asked  volunteers,  "to 
attempt  foreign  conquests  while  your  wives  and  little  ones 
are  left  exposed  to  an  exasperated  and  unfeeling  foe?" 
As  autumn  came  on,  he  made  the  most  of  the  reports 
of  suffering  among  underclad  troops.  He  wished  no  one 
to  forget  that  their  misery  had  been  caused  by  "a 
wretched,  incapable,  mob-courting  administration,  less 
concerned  to  provide  supplies  for  their  army  than  to  se- 
cure by  low  intrigue  the  places  they  so  unworthily  fill." 

It  required  no  little  courage  to  declare  that  the  war 
was  "a  great  national  calamity,"  that  it  was  "clearly  un- 
just," and  that  the  points  in  dispute  were  not  worth  the 
blood  and  treasure  being  spent.  Two  years  previous, 
when  the  Evening  Post  was  angrily  opposing  the  impend- 
ing conflict,  a  mob  of  Democrats  had  gathered  at  Mart- 
ling's  Porter-House,  and  just  before  midnight  had  at- 
tacked the  house  of  Michael  Burnham,  part-owner  of  the 
journal,  smashing  his  windows,  and  nearly  killing  an  in- 
fant. Just  after  the  declaration  of  war  occurred  the 
memorable  mob  attack  upon  the  Baltimore  Federal  Re- 
publican, in  which  Gen.  James  Lingan,  a  Revolutionary 
veteran  defending  the  office,  was  killed,  and  Gen.  Henry 
Lee  crippled.  Jack  Binns,  in  the  Philadelphia  Demo- 
cratic Press,  proclaimed  that  it  would  be  only  natural  if  a 
body  of  angry  men  executed  the  same  summary  justice 
upon  the  traitorous  editor  of  the  Evening  Post.  For 
some  time  anonymous  threats  poured  in  upon  Coleman. 


54  THE  EVENING  POST 

Among  them  was  one  which  left  him  so  certain  that  vio- 
lence was  actually  brewing  that  he  applied  to  Mayor  Clin- 
ton for  protection;  and  the  city  watch  was  doubled, 
special  constables  were  held  in  readiness,  and  a  party  of 
armed  friends  spent  the  night  at  Coleman's  house.  Noth- 
ing, however,  occurred. 

Coleman  defiantly  maintained  that  his  right  to  free 
speech  was  in  no  way  abridged  by  the  declaration  of  war, 
and  published  a  special  series  of  editorials,  highly  legal- 
istic in  nature,  denouncing  the  Baltimore  outrage.  He 
reminded  the  Democrats  that  in  intimidating  and  attack- 
ing the  Federalists  for  their  opposition  they  had  short 
memories.  Had  they  forgotten  their  open  resistance  to 
the  hostilities  which  the  United  States  waged  against 
France  in  1798?  This  attitude,  fortunately,  met  with 
powerful  support.  At  a  great  peace  mass-meeting  in 
Washington  Hall  on  Aug.  18,  John  Jay,  Rufus  King, 
Gouverneur  Morris,  Egbert  Benson,  and  Richard  Varick 
all  assailed  the  war  and  asserted  the  right  to  outspoken 
criticism  of  it.  By  this  date  Coleman's  views  had  met 
what  seemed  to  him  the  strongest  possible  confirmation. 
It  had  become  known  early  in  August  that  the  British 
had  repealed  the  Orders  in  Council,  which  were  the  great 
cause  of  the  war,  and  for  a  moment  hopes  of  peace  had 
risen  high;  but  Madison  immediately  rejected  the  armis- 
tice proffered  by  the  British  commander  Prevost.  The 
anger  of  New  York  and  New  England  Federalists  passed 
all  bounds.  "God  of  truth  and  mercy  I"  raged  the  Eve- 
ning Post.  "Our  treasure  is  to  be  wasted,  our  immense 
frontiers  are  to  be  one  scene  of  devastation,  where  the 
merciless  savage  is  to  revel  in  the  blood  of  defenseless 
men,  women,  and  children,  because  the  form  of  the 
revocation  is  not  satisfactory  to  our  precise  and  critical 
President!" 

The  first  news  of  an  important  military  event  confirmed 
Coleman's  gloomy  apprehensions.  On  Aug.  31  he  was 
able  to  write  a  long  editorial  upon  Hull's  surrender  at 
Detroit  in  that  I-told-you-so  spirit  which  is  an  editor's 
subtlest  joy.     He  called  it  disgraceful: 


THE  FEDERALIST  PRESS  55 

A  nation,  counting  eight  millions  of  souls,  deliberating  and 
planning  for  a  whole  winter  and  spring,  and  part  of  a  summer, 
the  invasion  and  conquest  of  a  neighboring  province,  at  length 
making  that  invasion;  and  in  one  month  its  army  retiring — cap- 
tured— and  captured  in  a  fortified  place — captured  almost  without 
firing  a  gun!  Miserably  deficient  in  practical  talent  must  be  the 
administration  which  formed  the  plan  of  that  invasion;  or  the 
army  which  has  thus  surrendered  must  be  a  gang  of  more  cow- 
ardly poltroons,  than  ever  disgraced  a  country.  .  .  . 

What!  March  an  army  into  a  country  where  there  were  not 
more  than  seven  or  eight  hundred  soldiers  to  oppose  them,  and 
not  make  the  army  large  enough!  March  them  from  a  country, 
which  is  the  granary  of  the  world,  and  let  them  famish  on  the 
very  frontiers  for  want  of  provisions!  Issue  a  gasconading  proc- 
lamation threatening  to  exterminate  the  enemy,  and  surrender  your 
whole  army  to  them!  If  there  be  judgment  in  this  people,  they 
will  see  the  utter  unfitness  of  our  rulers  for  anything  beyond  man- 
agement, intrigue,  and  electioneering. — They  have  talents  enough 
to  influence  a  misguided  populace  against  their  best  friends;  but 
they  cannot  protect  the  nation  from  insult  and  disgrace. 

Similar  attacks  upon  the  Administration's  incompe- 
tence followed  every  other  reverse.  From  the  early  de- 
feat at  Queenstown  Heights  to  the  "Bladensburg  Races," 
when  an  American  force  fled  ignominiously  before  Cock- 
burn's  invaders  and  exposed  Washington  to  capture,  the 
Evening  Post  missed  no  opportunity  for  harsh  criticism. 
'*Woe  to  that  nation  whose  king  is  a  child!"  was  a  favor- 
ite quotation  of  Coleman's.  The  journal  was  far  from 
unpatriotic,  and  sincerely  deplored  the  several  defeats, 
but  it  held  the  government  rigidly  responsible  for  them. 

The  editor  never  changed  his  opinion  that,  to  use  his 
words  in  the  last  year  of  the  war,  it  was  "an  unsuccessful 
war,  ...  a  war  declared  without  just  cause  and  without 
preparation,  for  the  continuance  of  which  no  man  can 
assign  a  reason,  and  from  the  termination  of  which  no  man 
expects  an  advantage."  And  patriotic  though  Coleman 
was,  he  rejoiced  In  the  failure  of  the  successive  efforts  to 
Invade  Canada.  He  thought  conquest  In  that  quarter  the 
most  shameless  territory-grabbing.     In  these  utterances 


56  THE  EVENING  POST 

we  catch  the  first  accents  of  the  Evening!  Post's  century- 
long  campaign  against  "Imperialism."  He  wrote  late  in 
1814: 

Uti  Possidetis,  or  Keep  What  You've  Got. — The  Lexington 
paper  (Kentucky)  some  time  ago,  before  the  British  had  got  pos- 
session of  Fort  Niagara,  Michilimackinac,  Castine,  Moose  Island, 
etc.,  etc.,  about  the  time  when  Gen.  Wilkinson  was  to  sup  **in 
Montreal  or  Heaven,"  this  paper  then  said  if  any  ministers  should 
make  a  treaty  on  any  other  basis,  than  each  to  keep  what  they  had 
got,  they  ought  to  have  a  halter.  But  then  it  was  my  bull  and 
your  cow. 

In  sharp  contrast  with  these  editorials  were  the  exultant 
comments  of  the  journal  upon  the  dazzling  successes  of 
the  Americans  at  sea.  The  Federalists  since  1801  had 
constantly  called  for  a  larger  navy.  The  first-known  and 
most  famous  sea-flight  of  18 12  was  the  victory  on  Aug. 
19  of  the  Constitution  over  the  Guerriere,  a  vessel  with 
which  a  London  paper  had  declared  no  American  ship 
could  cope.  'We  have  always  contended  that  on  an  equal 
footing  Americans  can  be  whipped  by  none,"  cried  the 
Evening  Post.  "Man  for  man  and  gun  for  gun,  even  the 
veteran  British  tars  can  get  no  advantage  over  the  Amer- 
icans." With  a  shrewd  appreciation  of  the  opportunities 
which  Perry  and  McDonough  seized.  It  began  to  insist 
upon  a  naval  force  on  the  lakes.  Naturally,  It  still 
taunted  the  Democrats: 

Though  very  little  present  benefit  is  to  be  expected  from  the 
war,  commenced  as  it  has  been  and  carried  on  as  it  will  be,  under 
the  present  administration,  yet  it  may  have  one  good  effect;  it 
will  prove  that  in  a  contest  where  the  freedom  of  the  seas  is  the 
object,  a  naval  force  is  much  superior  to  an  army  on  the  land.  It 
will  prove,  what  the  Federalists  have  always  advocated,  and  what 
the  present  ruling  party  have  always  opposed,  the  necessity  of  a 
maritime  force  to  a  commercial  people. 

News  came  soon  after  of  the  capture  of  the  British 
sloop  Alert  by  the  American  frigate  Essex,  and  on  Dec.  7 
it  was  known  that  the  United  States,  commanded  by  De- 


THE  FEDERALIST  PRESS  57 

catur,  had  taken  the  Macedonian.  "This  is  the  third  vic- 
tory which  has  crowned  our  little  naval  force  with  laurels 
— may  they  bloom  perennial!"  exclaimed  Coleman.  He 
rather  ill-naturedly  accused  the  Administration  of  be- 
grudging the  seamen,  who  were  mostly  Yankees,  their 
victories.  ''Our  language  is,"  he  concluded,  ''give  us 
commerce  and  let  us  alone  to  protect  it.  We  have  ships 
and  we  have  men;  nor  will  we  go  to  France  for  either, 
though  your  Jeffersons  may  recommend  it  ever  so 
warmly." 

Nor  did  the  Evening  Post  fail  to  take  a  vigorously 
patriotic  attitude  upon  the  questions  raised  by  the  Hart- 
ford Convention.  The  year  18 14  drew  to  a  close  with 
the  entire  coast  tightly  blockaded  by  the  British,  the  inva- 
sions of  Canada  all  failures,  the  capitol  at  Washington  in 
ashes,  the  British  in  possession  of  northern  Maine,  and 
their  hands  at  last  free  in  Europe.  Mr.  Madison's  war 
had  ceased  to  be  an  offensive  war,  and  had  become  defen- 
sive. The  national  government,  almost  without  an  army, 
almost  without  money,  seemed  on  the  point  of  collapse. 
On  Dec.  15  there  met  at  Hartford  a  convention  of 
delegates  from  all  the  New  England  States,  who  for  three 
weeks  deliberated  in  secret;  some  believed  that  they  were 
laying  plans  to  declare  all  New  England — as  Nantucket 
had  already  declared  herself — neutral,  and  to  throw  open 
its  ports  to  the  British,  while  others  said  that  they  were 
plotting  secession,  and  the  erection  of  a  Yankee  republic. 

Coleman  at  the  time  had  been  called  to  Middletown, 
Conn.,  on  business,  and  proceeded  to  Hartford  to  see 
some  friends.  Theodore  Dwight,  the  secretary  of  the 
convention,  later  stated  that  the  editor  tried  to  gain  in- 
formal entrance,  but  this  Coleman  denied.  He  never, 
even  when  years  afterward  the  Hartford  Convention  had 
become  an  object  of  deep  reproach,  condemned  it.  But 
upon  returning  to  New  York  he  did  express  a  deprecatory 
opinion  of  it.  He  commenced  by  declaring  that  the  up- 
roar of  the  Southerners  over  this  "treasonable"  gathering 
was  as  hypocritical  as  it  was  groundless.  Who  were  these 
canting  Virginians  who  inveighed  against  separatism  and 


58  THE  EVENING  POST 

State  Rights?  The  North  had  not  forgotten  that  when 
Jay's  treaty  arrived,  the  newspapers  of  Virginia  unani- 
mously began  to  discuss  secession.  It  had  not  forgotten 
that  Senator  Giles,  author  of  the  detestable  Conscription 
bill  which  had  just  failed,  had  then  openly  advocated  a 
dissolution  of  the  Union.  Had  not  Madison  maintained, 
Lj^n  the  Virginia  Assembly,  the  abstract  right  of  secession? 
But  Coleman  then  proceeded  to  speak  a  word  of  reas- 
surance, and  another  of  warning: 

What  precisely  the  Convention  will  do,  it  would  be  presump- 
tion in  any  one  to  predict.  .  .  .  But  from  our  personal  knowledge 
of  the  gentlemen  composing  the  Convention,  it  will  not  be  diffi- 
cult to  pronounce  with  certainty  what  they  will  not  do.  They 
have  been  selected  from  the  most  respectable  men  in  New  Eng- 
land, distinguished  for  their  prudence,  for  their  wisdom,  for  their 
firmness.  .  .  .  We  may  be  justified  in  saying  this  respectable 
body,  with  such  a  president  [George  Cabot]  at  their  head,  will 
not  do  anything  rash  or  precipitate  or  violent;  they  will  not  take 
any  step  but  what  every  man  of  sound  principles,  every  friend  to 
social  order  throughout  the  Union,  will  approve.  .  .  .  While  they 
are  bent  on  preserving  the  rights  that  are  reserved  to  the  States  or 
the  people,  from  usurpation  and  abuse,  they  will  take  care  not  to 
trench  upon  those  powers  which  are  delegated  to  the  United  States 
by  the  Constitution.  The  vessel  at  present  wears  well,  and  while 
there  is  room  to  believe  that  she  will  go  safe  about,  and  there  is 
sea-room  enough  to  do  it  in,  why  should  they  attempt  to  throw 
her  in  stays? 

The  vessel  did  come  safe  about.  When  six  weeks  later 
the  news  of  the  treaty  of  Ghent  reached  New  York  late 
at  night,  the  city  was  thrown  into  such  jubilation  by  the 
mere  ending  of  the  conflict  that  no  one  stopped  to  inquire 
the  terms.  But  Coleman  and  the  other  local  Federalist 
leaders,  as  they  watched  the  crowds  surging  up  and  down 
Broadway  crying — "A  peace!  A  peace!"  knew  that  the 
Democrats  had  nothing  to  boast.  After  a  calm  Sunday, 
the  editor  presented  his  views  on  Monday  morning.  He 
would  stake  his  reputation  that  when  the  terms  became 
known,  "it  will  be  found  that  the  government  have  not 
by  the  negotiation  obtained  one  single  avowed  object, 


THE  FEDERALIST  PRESS  59 

for  which  they  involved  the  country  in  this  bloody  and 
expensive  war."  He  enumerated  these  objects — the  stop- 
page of  impressments,  the  conquest  of  Canada,  and  the 
abolition  of  commercial  restrictions.  He  catalogued  the 
loss  of  life,  the  suffering  on  every  frontier,  and  the  waste 
of  $150,000,000  in  treasure.  The  one  gain  that  Mr. 
Madison  had  obtained  was  a  second  term  at  $25,000  a 
year  in  a  marble  executive  mansion,  gorgeously  refur- 
nished. But,  he  concluded,  "let  the  nation  rejoice — we 
have  escaped  ruin." 

A  part  of  Coleman's  disloyalty  in  the  war,  as  oppo- 
sition journals  called  it,  lay  in  his  vindictive  pleasure  over 
every  disaster  that  befell  French  arms.  Editorials  on 
foreign  affairs  were  rare,  and  usually  ill-informed.  But 
three  months  after  war  was  declared  the  Evening  Post 
based  upon  Wellington's  victories  in  Spain  the  sound  pre- 
diction that  the  French  forces  would  soon  be  compelled 
to  evacuate  the  Peninsula  altogether.  "Bonaparte  will 
never  be  emperor  of  the  world,"  wrote  Coleman,  with  an 
eye  also  upon  Russia's  hostility;  "it  will  require  all  his 
talents  to  maintain  himself  even  on  the  throne  of  France." 
On  Dec.  12,  18 12,  when  news  had  just  reached  New  York 
of  the  burning  of  Moscow  (Sept.  16-20),  leaving  Napo- 
leon stranded  on  an  ashheap,  a  really  shrewd  statement 
of  his  peril  appeared: 

We  have  conversed  with  an  intelligent  gentleman  who  resided  a 
long  time  in  Russia,  and  about  seven  years  of  the  time  in  the 
city  of  Moscow.  He  informs  us  that  the  weather  in  that  country 
is  generally  pleasant  till  after  the  first  of  October,  when  the  frost 
sets  in,  and  excessive  storms  of  rain  and  sleet  are  experienced,  and 
continue  with  very  little  intermission  until  about  the  middle  of 
December.  All  the  time  the  roads  are  so  overwhelmed  with  water 
and  ice,  that  traveling  is  extremely  uncomfortable,  and  many 
times  quite  impracticable.  After  the  middle  of  December  the 
snows  begin  to  fall  in  such  quantities  that  all  traveling  is  entirely 
at  an  end;  and  the  usual  communication  from  town  to  town  is 
interrupted  for  several  weeks,  the  snows  sometimes  falling  to  the 
depth  of  eight  or  ten  feet.  He  thinks,  if  Bonaparte  did  not  com- 
mence his  retreat  from  Moscow  by  the  middle  of  October,  that 


6o  THE  EVENING  POST 

he  will  be  obliged  to  winter  there;  for  after  that  time  it  will  be 
impossible  for  him  to  get  out  of  Russia.  ...  If  he  is  obliged  to 
winter  there,  the  Russians  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  cut  off  his 
supplies  until  about  the  middle  of  December,  after  which  time 
all  travel  ceases  until  spring,  and  the  great  army  of  the  north 
will  be  annihilated. 

Indeed,  it  is  plain  from  all  the  accounts  we  can  collect  from 
.  .  .  the  French  papers  .  .  .  that  the  Russians  have  nothing  to 
do  but  to  hold  out  this  winter,  and  their  country  will  be  relieved 
from  its  invaders.  That  they  are  determined  to  persevere  appears 
to  be  certain ;  the  destruction  of  such  a  city  as  Moscow  is  a  proof 
of  that  determination,  and  a  sure  pledge  that  they  will  never  sur- 
render while  they  can  hold  a  foot  of  ground. 

Although  the  defeat  of  Napoleon  at  Leipsic  meant  that 
England  would  thenceforth  be  able  to  turn  Wellington's 
veteran  armies  against  us,  Federalist  editors  rejoiced  as 
if  it  had  been  an  American  victory.  They  forgot  for 
the  moment  the  implications  of  the  event  for  the  war 
on  this  side ;  they  thought  only  of  the  triumph  of  freedom 
over  a  military  despot.  "It  is  the  morning  dawn  of  lib- 
erty in  Europe  after  a  long,  a  dark,  and  a  dismal  night," 
wrote  Coleman.  "This  is  the  first  ray  of  light  which  has 
visited  the  eyes  of  an  oppressed  people  for  many  years 
past.  For  while  Bonaparte  remained  in  power  even  hope 
was  dead — nothing  but  tyranny  and  oppression  could  be 
expected.  And  so  firm  had  he  fixed  himself  in  his  usurped 
seat,  that  it  appeared  almost  out  of  the  power  of  human 
exertions  to  shake  him.  .  .  .  New  prospects  are  opening 
up  on  the  thinking  mind;  humanity  appears  to  be  near  the 
end  of  her  sufferings." 

The  wars  in  Europe  and  America  over,  the  old  rancors 
forgotten,  Coleman  gladly  accepted  the  era  of  good  feel- 
ing. In  the  spring  of  1816  the  Evening  Post  supported 
Rufus  King  in  his  losing  fight  for  the  Governorship.  But 
from  the  beginning  of  the  year  it  had  made  up  its  mind 
that  the  Democrats,  headed  by  Monroe,  would  gain  the 
Presidency  that  fall,  and  it  went  through  the  motions  of 
sustaining  King  for  the  higher  office — he  received  only  34 
electoral  votes  against  Monroe's  183 — listlessly.     Mon- 


THE  FEDERALIST  PRESS  6i 

roe's  success  made  of  the  Federalist  party  a  mere  corpse^ 
over  which  factions  in  State  politics  fought  hke  hyenas. 
Coleman  showed  no  reluctance  in  admitting  the  demise, 
though  he  conventionally  explained  it  as  resulting  from 
the  Democratic  adoption  of  Federalist  principles.  When 
in  1 8 19  the  Aurora  attacked  Monroe,  the  Evening  Post 
actually  flew  out  in  the  President's  defense.  It  was  satis- 
fied, wrote  the  editor,  "that,  take  it  all  in  all,  the  adminis- 
tration of  James  Monroe  is,  at  this  day,  more  generally 
acceptable  to  all  classes  of  society  in  the  United  States, 
than  that  of  any  other  man  has  ever  been,  since  the  days 
of  Washington/^  Coleman  was  entertained  in  18 19  by 
Vice-President  Tompkins  at  the  latter's  Staten  Island 
home,  and  confessed  later  that  he  fell  quite  under  the 
sway  of  Tompkins's  "great  affability"  and  "his  winning 
and  familiar  manner."  In  short,  by  1820  no  one  would 
have  been  surprised  if  some  prophet  had  foretold  that 
the  journal  of  the  "Federalist  Field-Marshal"  would 
shortly  become  the  leading  Democratic  organ  in  the  city. 

But  while  it  became  half-Democratic,  the  Evening  Post 
never  ceased  to  be  the  spokesman  of  the  best  commercial      ! 
sentiment  in  the  city.    As  such,  it  opposed,  with  a  bitter       \ 
show  of  sectional  feeling,  the  Missouri  Compromise  In        \ 
1820.    The  question  at  issue,  said  Coleman,  was  nothing         \ 
more  or  less  than  "whether  they  shall  or  shall  not  be 
allowed  to  establish  a  new  market  for  the  sale  of  human         I 
flesh."     When  the  Virginia  Legislature  made  a  veiled         / 
threat  of  secession  unless  Missouri  were  admitted.  Cole-       / 
man  rated  the  South  angrily.     They  were  hypocrites  to      / 
talk  about  the  Hartford  Convention;    they  had  been     / 
cowards  when  Washington  was  burned;    on  John  Ran-     I 
dolph's  own  statement,  they  were  in  constant  fear  of  a     I 
slave  insurrection — these  and  other  "bitter  taunts,"  as    / 
the  Richmond  Enquirer  called  them,  proved  the  force  of  / 
Jefferson's  statement  that  the  Missouri  controversy  was  / 
like  a  firebell  in  the  dark.  / 

But  the  disintegration  of  the  Federalist  party  of  course 
robbed  the  Evening  Post  of  a  great  part  of  Its  influence. 
It  was  no  longer  a  sounding  board  for  the  best  leadership 


62  THE  EVENING  POST 

of  that  party;  men  no  longer  recognized  In  its  utterance 
the  voices  of  Hamilton's  ablest  and  most  energetic  suc- 
cessors, King,  Troup,  Jay,  Kent,  and  Morris.  It  became 
merely  one  of  a  half  dozen  journals  recognized  to  have 
editors  of  brains  and  principle;  and  in  1816  it  was  des- 
tined to  wait  just  a  decade  until  it  began  to  receive  dis- 
tinction from  a  man  of  something  more  than  brains — 
a  man  of  genius. 


CHAPTER  THREE 

THE  CITY  AND  THE  "EVENING  POST's"  PLACE  IN  IT 

The  first  carrier  boys  of  the  Evening  Post  had  a  city 
of  60,000,  a  little  larger  than  Mount  Vernon  and  a  little 
smaller  than  Passaic  of  to-day,  to  traverse.  From  the 
pleasant  park  at  the  Battery  It  was  a  distance  of  only 
about  a  mile  north  to  the  outskirts  of  the  town.  Just 
beyond  Its  fringes,  partly  surrounded  by  woods,  lay  the 
Collect  or  Fresh  Water  Pond,  from  which  water  was 
piped  to  the  city,  and  in  which,  despite  the  ordinances, 
neighboring  housewives  occasionally  washed  the  family 
garments.  There  were  seven  wards,  designated,  since  the 
names  Out-Ward,  Dock-Ward,  and  so  on  had  been  lost, 
by  numbers.  The  northern  part  of  the  town  was  the  plain, 
plebeian  part,  with  much  more  actual  wretchedness  and 
want  In  severe  winters  than  New  York  should  have  tol- 
erated. It  was  also  the  stronghold  of  Democracy,  and 
the  fastest-growing  section. 

Every  one  who  had  any  pretensions  to  gentility  man- 
aged to  crowd  south  of  Reade  and  Chatham  Streets,  and 
the  nearer  a  merchant  or  lawyer  approached  the  Battery 
the  greater  were  likely  to  be  his  claims  to  social  emi- 
nence. The  mansions  that  faced  Bowling  Green,  or  that, 
like  Archibald  Grade's,  looked  from  State  Street  over 
the  bay,  many  of  them  graceful  with  porticoes  and  pillars, 
were  called  ''Quality  Row";  and  the  neighboring  streets 
shone  In  their  reflected  luster.  Many  rich  citizens,  of 
course,  had  suburban  seats  along  the  Hudson  and  East 
Rivers.  The  aristocracy  prided  Itself  upon  substantial 
virtues  and  substantial  possessions — solid  mahogany, 
thick  cut  glass,  heavy  solid  silver  sets,  old  and  pure  wines, 
and  old  customs.  It  was  made  up  of  almost  indistinguish- 
able elements  of  Dutch,  English,  New  England,  and 
Huguenot  blood.      The  members  took  no  shame  from 

63 


64  THE  EVENING  POST 

their  general  absorption  in  mercantile  pursuits;  and  Al- 
exander Stewart  would  himself  show  you  over  his  ship- 
goods  establishment  at  68  Wall,  Robert  Lenox  would 
talk  of  the  35,000  acres  of  Genesee  Valley  land  which  he 
had  in  hand  for  sale,  one  of  the  Swords  brothers  would 
offer  you  his  newest  publication  in  his  Pearl  Street  book- 
shop, and  a  scion  of  the  De  Peyster  family,  which  had 
been  in  business  since  1650,  would  himself  sell  you  one  of 
his  hogsheads  of  sherry  at  Murray's  Wharf. 

Twenty  years  later  the  Evening  Post  declared  that 
"there  is  not  a  city  in  the  world  which,  in  all  respects,  has 
advanced  with  greater  rapidity  than  the  city  of  New 
York."  The  population  had  leaped  up  to  130,000. 
"Whichever  way  we  turn,  new  buildings  present  them- 
selves to  our  notice.  In  the  upper  wards  particularly 
entire  streets  of  elegant  brick  buildings  have  been  formed 
on  sites  which  only  a  few  years  ago  were  either  covered 
with  marshes,  or  occupied  by  a  few  straggling  frame  huts 
of  little  or  no  value."  On  Canal  Street  "almost  a  city 
of  itself"  had  sprung  up  where  recently  there  had  been 
a  stagnant  marsh.  In  Greenwich  Village  and  along  the 
Bowery  two  other  veritable  cities  were  assuming  shape. 
Large  fortunes  had  been  made  by  the  sale  of  real  estate, 
and  the  prospective  opening  of  the  Erie  Canal  was  ac- 
centuating the  boom.  A  visitor  from  Boston,  whose 
impressions  were  published  In  the  Evening  Post,  praised 
some  of  the  Broadway  stores  as  showing  "more  splendor 
and  magnificence  than  any  I  have  ever  seen,"  commended 
the  paving  of  the  north-and-south  streets,  and  showed  his 
Interest  in  the  city's  three  show-places,  the  Museum,  Trin- 
ity Church,  and  the  new  City  Hall,  with  Its  rich  Turkey 
carpets,  crimson  silk  curtains,  and  eighteen  imposing  por- 
traits of  warriors  and  statesmen.  In  1823  a  new  building 
was  erected  at  the  corner  of  Pearl  and  Flymarket  Streets. 
The  Evening  Post  listed  the  objects  placed  in  the  corner- 
stone— a  paper  by  a  local  pundit  on  the  supposed  North- 
men's tower  at  Newport,  a  copy  of  the  Plough-Boy,  a  life 
of  Dr.  Samuel  L.  Mitchill,  the  seventh  report  of  the 
Bible  Society,  and  some  coins.     But  the  journal's  chief 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  POST  6s 

interest  lay  In  the  amazing  cost  of  the  site — $20,500  for 
a  plot  25  by  40  feet.  This,  It  said,  was  as  striking  evi- 
dence of  the  city's  growth  as  the  ''twenty  elegant  ships" 
which  now  plied  regularly  to  Liverpool. 

What  part  had  the  Evening  Post  tried  to  play  in  this 
transformation  of  a  provincial  town  into  a  metropolis? 
William  Cullen  Bryant  states  that  when  he  joined  the 
journal  In  1826,  It  was  "much  occupied  with  matters  of 
local  interest,  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  city,  the  state 
of  its  streets,  its  police,  Its  regulations  of  various  kinds." 
That  had  always  been  true.  No  other  New  York  editor 
of  the  time  took  an  interest  in  civic  Improvements  that 
approached  Coleman's. 

For  the  paper's  first  fifteen  years  it  might  have  been 
questioned  whether  it  viewed  with  greater  dismay  the 
errors  of  the  Democrats  at  Washington  or  the  running 
at  large  of  great  numbers  of  hogs  within  the  city  limits. 
New  Yorkers  of  to-day  think  of  the  toleration  of  swine 
as  characteristic  only  of  the  backward  Southern  towns 
described  by  Mark  Twain;  but  our  great-grandfathers 
saw  them  rooting  In  City  Hall  Park  and  basking  in  Broad- 
way and  Wall  Street.  As  Coleman  told  his  readers  in 
1803,  they  were  "a  multitude."  Some  men  made  a  busi- 
ness of  raising  them.  One  householder  of  the  Fifth 
Ward  in  1803  had  sixty  at  large;  fifteen  years  later 
Coleman  knew  a  colored  man  who  had  more  than  forty. 
Whenever,  from  a  diet  of  dead  cats  and  other  gutter 
dainties,  they  threatened  to  become  diseased,  they  were 
hurried  to  the  butcher;  with  the  result  that  fastidious 
people  ate  no  pork.  Every  one  admitted  that  they  were 
unsightly,  malodorous,  and  kept  the  walks  filthy,  while 
every  few  months  a  carriage  upset  over  one.  But  the 
poor  demanded  them,  and  it  was  argued  they  were  scaven- 
gers. The  one  restriction,  ill-enforced,  was  that  their 
noses  be  ringed  to  protect  the  turf. 

As  late  as  1828  Coleman  complained  that  pigs  were 
met  everywhere  in  the  lower  part  of  the  city.  In  his 
campaign  against  them  he  gave  full  space  to  the  accidents 
they  caused.    A  not  untypical  mishap  occurred  in  18 19. 


66  THE  EVENING  POST 

An  alarm  of  fire  In  Maiden  Lane  brought  the  firemen 
and  the  usual  crowd  of  boys  racing  down  Broadway  with 
ropes  hauling  a  fire-engine.  As  they  were  at  top  speed 
a  large  hog  darted  into  their  path,  the  whole  line  went 
down,  and  the  heavy  engine  passed  over  several.  The 
corporation  had  already  passed  an  ordinance  (effective 
Jan.  I,  1818)  making  it  illegal  to  let  hogs  go  unpenned, 
but  it  was  flagrantly  violated.  "Although  every  street 
in  the  city  is  thronged  with  hogs,  yet  none  could  be  found 
who  were  individual  owners,"  said  the  paper  soon  after- 
ward. When  efforts  were  made  to  send  "hog-carts" 
along  the  Bowery  and  other  infested  streets,  angry  owners 
gathered  and  overset  the  wagons.  In  the  spring  of  1829 
three  thieves  were  actually  arrested  for  driving  into  the 
city,  collecting  fourteen  fat  shoats  from  the  streets,  and 
starting  for  the  country;  they  intended  to  bring  them 
back  as  prime  corn-fed  country  pork.  How  long,  asked 
the  Evening  Post,  would  the  shameful  indifference  to  the 
ordinance  endure? 

It  was  necessary  to  keep  up  an  incessant  fire  of  com- 
plaint against  the  wretched  street-repair  and  street-clean- 
ing systems  of  the  time.  As  early  as  1803  the  Evening 
Post  declared  that  the  streets  should  in  part  be  flushed, 
and  that  it  would  hence  be  well  "if  the  waterworks  were 
the  property  of  the  public,  as  was  originally  intended;  and 
not  of  a  private  company,  who  are  attentive  only  to  their 
individual  interest."  In  the  summer  of  1807  Coleman, 
who  was  fond  of  a  horse  and  gig,  wrote  that  the  Broad- 
way road  was  in  "such  a  state  of  neglect  and  ruin  that 
no  one  could  drive  through  it  after  dark  but  at  the  hazard 
of  limbs  and  life,"  that  after  a  heavy  rain  horses  sank 
up  to  their  girths,  and  that  serious  accidents  had  occurred, 
one  rider  breaking  his  thigh  and  another  his  shoulder- 
bone.  The  ways  were  then  crossed  at  intervals  by  open 
gutters,  sometimes  so  deep  as  to  be  a  serious  impediment 
to  traffic;  even  in  front  of  St.  Paul's,  in  the  heart  of  the 
city,  Broadway  when  the  Evening  Post  was  founded  was 
traversed  by  one  almost  impassable.  A  campaign  had  to 
be  begun  by  the  press  for  covered  sewers. 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  POST  67 

In  1 8 17  the  streets  were  described  as  dirtier  than  at 
any  other  time  since  "the  year  of  filth,"  when  the  British 
had  evacuated  the  city  after  the  Revolution.  In  a  sudden 
access  of  energy  the  next  year  the  authorities  set  gangs 
of  twenty  to  fifty  men  once  a  week  to  attacking  the  streets 
with  brooms.  A  fearful  dust  was  raised,  and  yet  the 
roadways  were  still  imperfectly  cleaned.  Coleman 
pointed  out  that  more  frequent  sweeping  by  smaller  forces 
would  be  better,  and  that  In  Boston  much  of  the  work 
was  done  at  night.  In  1823  there  came  new  grumblings 
over  the  filth  and  garbage.  "Notwithstanding  the  great 
extent  of  the  city  of  London,"  wrote  Coleman,  "we 
have  seldom  seen  cleaner  streets  than  those  of  the  British 
capital.  With  those  of  New  York  the  comparison  would 
be  odious."  What  was  chiefly  needed  he  thought  to  be 
plenty  of  water,  and  common  sewers  connecting  with  every 
house.    He  waxed  satirical : 

To  the  Curious: — The  collection  of  filth  and  manure  now 
lying  in  heaps,  or  which  has  been  heaped  in  Wall,  Pearl,  Water, 
and  Front  Streets,  near  the  Coffee-House,  and  left  there,  will 
astonish  those  who  are  fond  of  the  wonderful,  and  pay  them  for 
the  trouble  of  a  walk  there. 

Sanitary  ordinances  were  few,  and  apparently  hon- 
ored rather  in  the  breach  than  In  the  observance.  The 
city  was  full  of  unleashed  dogs,  and  whenever  in  hot 
weather  a  hydrophobia  panic  occurred — which  was  every 
two  or  three  years — they  were  slain  by  the  scores.  Dur- 
ing one  season  they  were  dumped  by  cartloads  into  a 
vacant  lot  at  Broadway  and  Bleecker  Street,  and  buried 
so  shallowly  that  neighboring  residents  had  to  keep  their 
windows  shut  against  the  pestilential  air.  Slaughter- 
houses were  tolerated  In  the  midst  of  residential  blocks, 
and  the  Evening  Post  early  In  the  twenties  began  to  call 
for  their  restriction.  A  correspondent  related  in  1825 
how  one  butcher  had  recently  purchased  a  small  plot,  and 
threatened  to  erect  a  shambles  there  unless  the  owners 
of  valuable  Improvements  near  by  paid  him  a  large  bonus 
— which  they  did ;  and  how  when  another  butcher  wished 


68     .  THE  EVENING  POST 

a  piece  of  property,  he  put  up  a  slaughterhouse  adjoin- 
ing it  to  compel  the  owner  to  sell  at  a  low  price.  The 
ordinance  against  the  summer  sale  of  oysters  was  long 
a  dead  letter.  "You  can  scarcely  pass  through  any  one 
street  in  the  city,"  grumbled  Coleman,  "without  running 
against  a  greasy  table,  with  plates  of  sickly  oysters  dis- 
played, well  peppered  with  dust,  and  swarms  of  flies  feed- 
ing upon  them." 

"The  city  of  feasts  and  fevers"  a  visitor  called  New 
i^ork — "feasts"  in  reference  to  the  frequent  banquets 
on  turtle,  venison,  and  Madeira,  "fevers"  in  reference  to 
the  epidemics  of  yellow  fever.  There  was  one  such  epi- 
demic in  1803.  So  great  was  the  exodus  that  in  Septem- 
ber the  population,  which  had  been  above  60,000,  was 
found  to  be  barely  38,000.  "It  is  notorious,"  declared 
a  writer  in  the  Evening  Post  at  this  stage,  "that  notwith- 
standing the  prevalence  of  a  malignant  disease,  and  when 
great  exertions  are  made  to  check  its  destroying  progress, 
the  streets  of  this  city  are  in  a  most  noxious  state;  and 
will  continue  to  increase  in  putridity,  unless  we  are  fa- 
vored with  some  refreshing  rains  to  clear  them."  The 
Evening  Post  removed  its  business  office  to  an  address 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  city,  and  Coleman  as  far  as  possi- 
ble edited  it  from  the  country.  For  a  time,  as  he  said, 
in  most  of  the  town  there  was  "no  business,  no  society, 
no  means  of  subsistence  even."  New  Yorkers  could  only 
set  their  teeth  and  wait  for  the  frosts. 

With  Noah  Webster  during  1803  the  Evening  Post 
conducted  a  long-winded  debate  upon  yellow  fever ;  Cole- 
man maintaining  that  it  was  always  imported  by  some 
ship  or  immigrant,  and  Webster  that  it  was  spontaneously 
generated  at  home.  Coleman  was  right,  though  of  course 
absolutely  ignorant  of  the  reasons  why  he  was  right;  and 
while  the  articles,  which  abound  in  mutual  complaints  of 
discourtesy,  became  very  tiresome,  Coleman's  argument 
tended  to  a  sound  conclusion.  He  argued  that  the  epi- 
demics could  be  avoided  by  rigidly  quarantining  the  city. 
It  was  always  held  contrary  to  public  policy  by  many 
merchants  and  officials  to  breathe  a  word  about  yellow 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  POST  69 

fever  till  the  last  possible  moment;  for  that  drove  trade 
to  Boston  or  Philadelphia.  But  Coleman  never  failed 
to  play  the  Dr.  Stockmarr  role  courageously. 

In  1809,  for  example,  the  paper  braved  the  anger  of 
business  men  by  asserting  on  July  24  that,  despite  all 
denials,  several  deaths  from  the  fever  had  just  occurred 
in  Brooklyn.  Though  an  epidemic  was  raging  in  Cuba, 
ships  from  Havana  had  been  allowed  to  come  up  from 
quarantine  within  four  days  of  arrival,  and  had  not  been 
unloaded  and  cleansed  according  to  the  law.  On  July  28, 
by  diligent  scouting  among  doctors,  Coleman  was  enabled 
to  report  a  death  from  fever  in  Cherry  Street  and  another 
In  Beekman  Street.  He  renewed  his  charge  of  mal- 
feasance and  neglect  by  the  Health  Officer  at  quarantine, 
a  political  appointee  who  pocketed  $15 ,000  a  year.  Why, 
he  demanded,  were  the  laws  as  to  the  removal  of  the  sick 
and  the  reporting  of  new  cases  not  enforced?  Four  days 
later  Mayor  De  Witt  Clinton  by  proclamation  forbade 
intercourse  with  the  village  of  Brooklyn.  At  last  I  ex- 
claimed the  editor.  But  why  not  look  to  conditions  within 
Manhattan  Itself,  and  make  the  ordinary  physician  obey 
the  law?  "If  he  does,  one  of  the  learned  faculty  will 
set  a  young  cub  of  a  student  upon  him  to  tear  him  In 
pieces  for  alarming  the  old  women;  and  then  there  is 
another  set  who  declare  him  a  public  enemy." 

Just  ten  years  later,  remarking  that  "it  has  hereto- 
fore been  the  practice  to  stifle,  as  long  as  possible,  the 
intelligence  that  the  yellow  fever  existed  In  the  city," 
Coleman  served  notice  that  if  It  broke  out,  as  it  did  in 
August,  he  would  advertise  the  fact.  In  1822  there  was 
a  severe  pestilence.  The  first  case  occurred  on  July  1 1 
in  a  house  on  Rector  Street,  and  was  Immediately  made 
known  to  the  Board  of  Health  and  to  the  officer  deputed 
by  law  to  give  the  first  notice  of  its  appearance.  Yet 
it  was  concealed  from  the  public  for  nearly  a  month, 
deaths  occurring  all  the  while,  but  no  precautionary  meas- 
ures being  taken;  and  before  the  epidemic  ended,  late  in 
October,  388  persons  died.  The  flight  of  the  population 
toward  the  open  parts  of  the  island  was  unprecedented. 


70  THE  EVENING  POST 

An  immediate  agitation  was  begun  by  the  Evening  Post 
for  a  different  organization  of  the  Board  of  Health.  By 
an  act  two  years  previous,  it  consisted  of  such  persons  as 
the  Common  Council  should  appoint,  a  phrase  which  the 
Council  always  construed  to  mean  that  it  should  itself  act 
as  the  Board.  The  members  were  quite  untrained,  while 
they  were  too  numerous,  and  too  busy  with  politics.  Cole- 
man suggested  a  Board  of  from  five  to  seven  qualified 
men,  to  be  nominated  by  the  Mayor  and  confirmed  by 
the   Council,    and   a   reform   actually   did   soon    follow. 

An  irritant  of  the  time,  akin  to  automobile  speedsters 
of  to-day,  lay  in  the  Irish  cartmen,  who  loved  a  race  even 
more  than  a  fight,  and  whom  Coleman  denounced  the 
more  vigorously  because  they  were  Democrats  to  a  man. 
The  bakers'  boys  were  called  "flying  Mercuries";  to  ex- 
cite terror,  said  the  Evening  Post  in  1805,  they  partic- 
ularly delighted  in  crashing  round  a  narrow  street  cor- 
ner at  a  dead  gallop,  splashing  those  whom  they  did  not 
graze.  The  journal  in  18 17  felt  it  proper  to  attack  the 
practice  of  riding  fast  horses  home  from  the  blacksmith's 
without  a  bridle.  Among  the  annoyances  showing  a  lack 
of  due  city  regulations  was  the  appearance  in  1820  of 
an  ingenious  mode  of  kite-flying.  As  flown  in  daytime, 
kites  had  always  been  admirably  calculated  to  scare 
horses.  Now  they  were  being  sent  up  at  night  by  hordes 
of  urchins,  said  the  Evening  Post,  with  a  parachute  and  a 
little  car  affixed,  the  car  containing  lighted  candles,  and 
the  whole  so  constructed  that  it  could  be  separated  from 
the  kite  at  pleasure.  They  were  miraculously  adapted  for 
setting  roofs  afire. 

Most  residential  streets  must  have  been  fairly  quiet; 
but  they  were  not  sufficiently  so  to  suit  the  harassed  edi- 
tor. We  find  him  In  1803  declaiming  In  order  against 
the  varied  noises:  "The  measured  ditty  of  the  young 
sweep  at  daybreak,  upon  the  chimney  top ;  the  tremendous 
nasal  yell  of  'Ye  rusk!';  the  sonorous  horn  that  gives 
dreadful  note  of  'gingerbread !' ;  and  the  echoing  sound  of 
'HoboyI'  at  midnight,  accompanied  with  Its  never-failing 
appeal  to  more  senses  than  one."     These  "hoboy  gentle- 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  POST  71 

men,"  whose  profession  was  connected  with  Mrs.  War- 
ren's, were  still  an  abomination  in  18 16,  "bellowing  out 
their  filthy  ditties"  for  two  hours  after  eleven.  As  late 
as  1 8 19,  at  the  flush  of  dawn  every  morning,  a  stage 
traversed  the  whole  length  of  Broadway  northward,  the 
guard  merrily  blowing  his  horn  as  it  went  and  all  the 
dogs  barking.  Hucksters,  like  beggars,  seem  at  all  times 
to  have  been  troublesome.  At  any  rate,  Coleman  in 
August,  1823,  fulminated  against  them  as  to  be  found 
on  every  street  and  almost  at  every  door,  and  as  offering 
^'almost  everything  that  can  be  named,  from  a  lady's 
leghorn  hat  to  a  shoestring,  from  a  saddle  to  a  cowskin, 
from  a  gold  ring  to  a  jewsharp."  Busy  householders  and 
ordinary  rent-paying  tradesmen  held  them  in  equal  dislike. 

There  was  little  of  the  moral  censor  or  the  preacher 
in  the  early  Evening  Post.  Yet  it  did  not  neglect  the  city's 
manners.  Temperance  sentiment  was  then  weak,  but  the 
journal  lamented  the  excessive  number  of  corner  grogger- 
ies;  for  in  New  York  licenses  cost  but  40  shillings,  and 
liquor-selling  was  more  extensive  than  in  Boston  or  Phila- 
delphia. In  1 8 10  the  Mayor  and  Excise  Commissioners 
granted  3,500  licenses,  and  it  was  estimated  that  of  the 
city's  14,000  families,  no  less  than  2,000  gained  a  live- 
lihood through  the  drink  trade.  Their  little  shops,  many 
of  them  in  cellars,  were  reported  to  exhibit  perpetual 
scenes  of  riot  and  disorder.  Six  years  later  a  writer  in 
the  Evening  Post  computed  that  there  were  more  than 
1,500  retail  establishments  for  liquor,  and  added  that  it 
were  better  to  let  loose  in  the  streets  1,500  hungry  lions 
and  tigers.  The  editor  favored  a  heavy  Federal  tax  to 
abate  the  evil. 

The  journal  had  the  courage  in  18 18  to  take  a  stand 
against  lotteries,  then  resorted  to  not  only  for  private 
gain,  but  to  raise  capital  for  bridges,  canals,  turnpikes, 
colleges,  and  churches.  Their  abolition  would  mean  a 
sacrifice  to  the  Evening  Post,  for  in  some  periods  of  pre- 
vious years  they  had  furnished  one-fifteenth  or  one-twen- 
tieth the  whole  advertising.  But  Coleman's  heart  was 
touched  by  the  losses  of  the  poor.     "Look  at  the  crowd 


72  THE  EVENING  POST 

of  poor,  ragged  wretches  that  beset  the  office-keeper's 
doors  the  morning  after  the  day's  drawing  is  over,  waiting 
with  their  little  slips  in  their  hands,  to  hear  their  fate, 
and  the  yesterday's  earnings  ready  to  be  given  to  the 
harpies  that  stand  gaping  for  the  pittance."  He  thought 
there  were  two  palliatives  short  of  abolition:  first,  to 
price  the  tickets  so  high  that  only  people  of  means  would 
gamble;  and  second,  as  in  England,  to  compel  managers 
to  finish  the  drawings  in  a  week  or  ten  days,  so  as  to  end 
the  pernicious  practice  of  insuring  the  fate  of  tickets. 
Three  years  later,  in  1821,  an  act  passed  providing  that 
no  new  lotteries  should  be  authorized. 

The  Evening  Post  said  nothing  against  public  execu- 
tions, which  during  the  first  quarter  of  the  century  drew 
crowds  of  thousands;  but  it  did  cease  at  an  early  date,  on 
principle,  to  publish  long  accounts  of  them.  In  June> 
1 8 19,  it  barely  mentioned  the  fact  that  a  great  concourse 
gathered  for  the  execution  in  Potter's  Field,  now  Wash- 
ington Square,  of  a  negress  named  Rose  Butler  for  at- 
tempted arson,  and  that  the  disappointment  was  keen 
when  she  was  respited.  Next  month  her  actual  hanging 
was  recorded  in  five  lines.  Imprisonment  for  debt  was 
repeatedly  attacked  by  the  editor. 

Little  was  said  by  Coleman  or  any  one  else  against 
cock-fighting  and  other  inhuman  amusements  of  the  time. 
In  1807,  however,  the  Evening  Post  opened  its  columns 
to  a  writer  who  described  with  indignant  reprobation  a 
bull-baiting  which  he  had  just  attended.  The  bull  was 
worried  by  dogs  until,  with  one  horn  broken  off,  his  ears 
in  shreds,  his  tongue  almost  torn  out,  and  his  eyes  filled 
with  blood,  he  stopped  fighting  and  had  to  be  driven  away 
to  save  his  life.  In  other  cities  about  18 15,  notably 
Philadelphia,  a  great  deal  was  being  said  against  the 
employment  of  chimney  sweeps,  a  set  of  dirty,  underfed, 
uneducated  urchins,  who  suffered  from  harsh  masters  and 
a  dangerous  calling.  Coleman  joined  the  chorus,  and 
printed  extended  accounts  of  British  inventions  for  the 
mechanical  cleaning  of  flues.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that 
in  1805  the  Evening  Post  was  as  willing  to  give  up  its 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  POST  73 

revenue  from  patent  medicines  as  later  that  from  lotteries. 
The  editor,  rendered  angry  by  the  death  of  a  little  girl 
who  had  taken  a  worthless  nostrum,  denounced  "the 
quack  medicines  and  quack  advertisements  which  .  .  . 
so  much  distinguish  and  disgrace  the  city."  Some  dally 
papers  were  filled  with  advertisements  of  Restoratives, 
Essences,  Balsams,  Lozenges,  and  Purifiers  warranted  to 
cure  all  human  ills ;  and  the  vendors  had  begun  to  publish 
in  Maiden  Lane  a  weekly  organ,  the  Remembrancer,  of 
which  they  distributed  five  hundred  copies  free. 

Upon  the  contributions  steadily  made  by  invention  and 
private  enterprise  to  the  comfort  of  the  city  many  com- 
ments may  be  found  in  the  Evening  Post.  Some  of  the 
most  interesting  relate  to  the  old  sailboat  ferries,  which 
were  both  slow  and  dangerous.  Repeated  accidents  oc- 
curred early  In  the  century.  Following  the  capsizing  of 
a  Brooklyn  ferry  one  bitter  December  day  In  1803,  with 
six  passengers  aboard,  Coleman  remarked  that  It  was  a 
notorious  fact  that  such  craft  were  placed  In  charge  of 
fellows  who  were  oftener  half  drunk  than  sober,  and 
who,  unable  themselves  to  steer,  committed  the  helm  to 
any  one  who  volunteered.  He  quoted  the  opinion  of  a 
competent  sailor  that  in  build  these  boats  were  the  most 
dangerous  ferries,  especially  in  rough  weather,  of  all  he 
had  seen  throughout  the  world.  The  Paulus  Hook  (Jer- 
sey City)  ferries,  when  contending  against  head  winds 
and  strong  tides,  required  three  hours  to  make  a  passage, 
and  It  was  virtually  impossible  to  get  a  horse  and  carriage 
across  the  North  River.  On  summer  Sundays,  when 
many  wished  to  go  to  Hoboken  for  picnics,  and  during  the 
autumn  racing  on  Long  Island,  prodigious  queues  would 
form  at  the  piers.  But  on  July  18,  18 12,  a  steam  ferry 
was  set  In  motion  between  Manhattan  and  Paulus  Hook 
by  Robert  Fulton.  Surpassing  all  expectations,  it  proved 
able  to  accommodate  six  carriages  and  horses — driven 
easily  aboard  by  a  floating  bridge — and  300  passengers 
at  one  time,  and  to  cross  during  a  calm  in  fourteen  min- 
utes, or  against  the  tide  In  twenty.  On  July  27  some 
1,500  people  were  ferried  across  and  back;  "a  proud  ex- 


74  THE  EVENING  POST 

ample  of  the  genius  of  our  country,"  said  Coleman. 
When  in  the  summer  of  1807  Fulton's  steamboat,  the 
Clermont,  began  her  regular  service  between  New  York 
and  Albany,  the  Evening  Post  was  jubilant;  he  had  made 
only  a  few  trips  before  it  wanted  the  mail  service  trans- 
ferred to  him.  It  proudly  recorded  each  new  reduction 
in  the  time,  until  one  trip  from  Albany  down  was  made  in 
28  hours.  Even  in  October  great  crowds  gathered  to 
watch  the  boat  start: 

Among  the  thousands  who  viewed  the  scene  [wrote  "New 
York"  on  Oct.  2]  permit  a  spectator  to  express  his  gratification  at 
the  sight,  this  morning,  of  the  steamboat  proceeding  on  her  trip 
to  Albany  in  a  wind  and  swell  of  tide  which  appeared  to  bid  defi- 
ance to  every  attempt  to  perform  the  voyage.  The  Steam  Boat  ap- 
peared to  glide  as  easily  and  rapidly  as  though  it  were  calm,  and 
the  machinery  was  not  in  the  least  impeded  by  the  waves  of  the 
Hudson,  the  wheels  moving  with  their  usual  velocity  and  effect. 
The  experiment  of  this  day  removes  every  doubt  of  the  prac- 
ticability of  the  Steam  Boat  being  able  to  work  in  rough  weather. 

Unfortunately,  this  particular  trip  was  actually  disas- 
trous. Leaving  the  city  at  10  a.m.,  the  boat  was  forced  by 
the  gale  and  tide  to  tie  up  to  the  bank  at  noon,  staying 
there  overnight.  Next  morning,  before  reaching  Tarry- 
town,  she  ran  into  a  small  sloop,  and  one  of  her  paddle- 
wheels  was  torn  away.  It  was  10  o'clock  on  the  morning 
of  Oct.  4  before  she  set  her  stiff  and  hungry  passengers 
ashore  in  Albany.  She  was  immediately  withdrawn,  and 
during  the  winter  was  almost  completely  rebuilt. 

The  journal  appreciatively  noticed  the  opening  of 
steamship  navigation  on  the  Raritan  and  Delaware  Rivers 
in  1809,  as  a  means  of  shortening  the  trip  between  New 
York  and  Philadelphia.  In  March,  18 15,  it  gave  an 
account  of  the  first  trip  through  Hell  Gate  and  the  Sound 
to  New  Haven.  The  steamship  Fulton  left  New  York 
shortly  after  5  a.  m.,  and,  the  weather  being  bad  and  the 
wood  for  fuel  poor,  did  not  reach  her  destination  till 
4:30  that  afternoon.  Eight  or  nine  hours  would  ordi- 
narily be  sufficient.  The  ease  with  which  Hell  Gate, 
theretofore  thought  impassable  by  steam,  was  navigated, 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  POST  75 

amazed  every  one.  No  less  than  $90,000  had  been  spent 
on  the  boat.  ''We  believe  It  may  with  truth  be  affirmed 
that  there  is  not  in  the  world  such  accommodations 
afloat,"  wrote  a  correspondent.  "Indeed,  it  is  hardly 
possible  to  conceive  that  anything  of  the  kind  can  exceed 
the  Fulton  in  elegance  and  convenience." 

By  the  beginning  of  18 16  the  Evening  Post  was  giving 
much  space  to  the  possibilities  of  coal  gas  as  an  illumi- 
nant.  A  schoolmaster  named  Griscom  lectured  the  eve- 
ning of  Jan.  26  on  the  light,  the  audience  including  the 
Mayor,  Recorder,  many  aldermen,  and  prominent  busi- 
ness men.  He  demonstrated  the  use  of  gas,  argued  that 
it  would  cost  only  half  as  much  as  lamps  or  candles,  and 
showed  that  it  gave  a  superior  brilliancy  without  smoke 
or  odor.  At  this  time,  as  Coleman  emphasized,  Lon- 
doners had  extensively  employed  coal  gas  for  four  or 
five  years.  During  the  summer  of  18 16  a  successful  trial 
was  made  in  Baltimore.  At  last,  seven  years  later,  the 
Evening  Post  was  able  editorially  to  direct  attention  to 
the  advertisement  of  the  New  York  Gas  Company,  which 
was  just  issuing  $200,000  worth  of  stock,  and  which  the 
city  government  had  given  a  franchise  for  lighting  all 
the  town  south  of  Grand  Street  for  the  next  thirty  years. 

But  the  use  of  old-fashioned  illuminants  involved  no 
such  hardships  as  did  the  city's  exclusive  dependence, 
when  Hamilton's  journal  began  its  career,  upon  wood  for 
fuel.  As  regularly  as  the  Hudson  froze  and  snowdrifts 
blocked  the  roads,  prices  soared.  In  January,  1806,  for 
example,  hickory  rose  from  the  normal  price  of  $3.50  a 
load  (three  loads  made  a  cord)  to  $7,  and  some  spec- 
ulators even  tried  to  get  $8.  In  1821,  after  a  severe 
snowstorm,  $5  was  charged  for  a  load  of  oak,  and  $7.50 
for  better  woods.  It  was  with  unusual  satisfaction,  there- 
fore, that  In  the  summer  of  1823  the  journal  said  that  it 
"congratulated  the  public  on  the  near  prospect  of  this 
city  being  supplied  with  coal,  dug  from  that  immense 
range"  of  potential  mines  lately  discovered  in  Pennsyl- 
vania. The  new  Schuylkill  Coal  Company  and  the  Lehigh 
Coal  and  Navigation  Company  were  making  preparations 


76  THE  EVENING  POST 

to  ship  the  anthracite;  and  Coleman  hoped  that  the  city's 
fuel  bill  of  $700,000  or  $800,000  would  be  cut  in  half. 

Little  criticism  was  given  the  watch  or  the  fire- 
men, though  neither  fully  protected  the  city.  In  18 12 
the  journal  very  properly  attacked  the  "snug  watch-boxes" 
in  which  the  police  were  wont  to  sit,  and  demanded  that 
the  men  be  warmly  dressed  and  kept  constantly  on  patrol. 
During  1818  its  complaints  of  the  insufficiency  of  the  po- 
lice redoubled,  and  in  1823,  when  the  total  annual  ex- 
pense to  the  city  was  $56,000,  Coleman  asserted  that  for 
almost  the  whole  ward  surrounding  Coenties  Slip,  with 
many  valuable  warehouses,  there  was  but  one  watchman. 
The  editor,  using  the  adjectives  "noisome,"  "beastly," 
"filthy,"  spoke  of  the  jail  and  bridewell  in  18 12  as  stand- 
ing reproaches  to  New  York.  He  also  condemned  "the 
abominable  practises  of  the  marshals,  constables,  low 
attornies,  and  a  number  of  other  wretches"  who  hung 
about  the  courts  and  bridewell  to  prey  upon  arrested  men. 
The  Evening  Post  at  intervals  till  1820  complained  of  a 
lack  of  inspection  in  public  markets;  while  with  almost 
equal  regularity  it  scored  the  neglect  of  the  Battery,  whose 
only  caretakers  were  too  often  the  hogs. 

The  one  reform  of  the  time  which  the  paper  opposed 
was  the  aldermanic  decree  in  the  spring  of  1820  that  no 
more  interments  should  take  place  south  of  Canal,  Sul- 
livan, and  Grand  Streets.  This  was  good  sense;  but 
Coleman,  as  a  spokesman  for  the  wealthy  merchant  fam- 
ilies, objected  because  it  rendered  many  family  burial 
plots  or  vaults  worthless,  and  because  the  nearest  avail- 
able cemeteries  were  three  and  a  half  miles  from  the  city. 

II 

We  have  already  named  the  daily  newspapers  which 
existed  when  Hamilton  and  his  associates  established  the 
Evening  Post.  The  oldest  of  the  five  was  the  Daily 
Gazette,  which  had  been  founded  as  a  weekly  in  1725  ;  the 
Post  made  six.  Dr.  Irving's  Morning  Chronicle,  patron- 
ized by  Burr,  seven,  and  the  Public  Advertiser  eight.  In 
1807  the  whole  list  of  city  publications  was  as  follows: 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  POST  77 

Federalist: — Evening  Post;  Commercial  Advertiser;  Daily 
Gazette;  Weekly  Inspector;  and  People's  Friend. 

Clintonian: — American  Citizen;  Public  Advertiser;  and  Bowery 
Republican. 

Lewisite  (Morgan  Lewis  was  the  inheritor  of  Burr's  mantle)  : 
— Morning  Chronicle. 

Neutral: — Mercantile  Advertiser;  New  York  Spy;  Price 
Current. 

Literary: — Monthly  Register;  Ladies'  Weekly  Miscellany; 
Weekly  Museum. 

Of  the  dailies,  the  Evening  Post  was  the  most  impor- 
tant; its  scope  was  the  widest,  its  editorials  were  the  best- 
written,  and  its  commercial  news  was  as  good  as  that 
obtained  by  Lang  or  Belden.  Yet  even  it  had,  at  the 
beginning  of  its  second  year,  but  1,104  subscribers  for 
the  daily  edition,  and  1,632,  chiefly  out-of-town,  for  the 
weekly.  New  Yorkers  then  regarded  newspapers  as  a 
luxury,  not  a  necessity.  Since  a  year's  subscription  cost 
$8,  or  ten  days'  wages  for  a  workingman,  the  poor  simply 
could  not  afford  it.  Thrifty  householders  exchanged 
sheets,  and  at  the  taverns  they  were  read  to  wide  circles. 
The  journal  was  never  sold  on  the  streets,  and  if  Coleman 
had  caught  an  urchin  peddling  it  he  would  have  boxed 
his  ears  for  a  fool;  whenever  a  visitor  at  the  City  Hotel, 
or  a  merchant  particularly  pleased  by  some  long  editorial, 
wished  a  copy,  he  not  only  had  to  pay  the  heavy  price  of 
iiYz  cents,  but  had  to  go  to  the  printer's  room  for  it. 
Coleman  no  more  thought  of  his  circulation  as  variable 
from  day  to  day  than  does  the  editor  of  a  country  weekly 
at  the  present  time. 

We  must  remember  that  the  dailies  of  old  New  York 
not  only  had  small  and  fixed  circulations,  but  that  it  was 
not  their  editors'  intention  to  make  them  purveyors  of 
news  in  anything  like  the  modern  sense.  Coleman  in  his 
nrospectus  made  no  promise  of  enterprise  in  supplying 
mtelligence.  An  editor  was  glad  to  give  a  completer 
notification  of  new  auctions  or  cargoes  than  any  rival,  or 
to  be  first  to  strike  the  party  note  upon  a  pohtical  event; 
but  a  news  "beat"  was  unknown. 


78  THE  EVENING  POST 

It  was  said  of  the  Commercial  Advertiser  that  wars 
might  be  fought  and  won,  dynasties  rise  and  fall,  quakes 
and  floods  ravage  the  earth,  and  it  would  never  mention 
them;  but  that  if  it  failed  to  list  a  single  ship  arrival  or 
sailing,  the  editor  would  meditate  blowing  out  his  brains. 
Several  New  York  newspapers  of  1 800-1 820  were  prin- 
cipally vehicles  of  political  opinion;  several  were  princi- 
pally organs  for  commercial  information  and  advertise- 
ments ;  and  some  were  a  mingling  of  the  two.  A  modicum 
of  news  was  thrown  in  to  add  variety,  and  though  it 
tended  to  grow  greater,  even  by  1825  it  was  only  a 
modicum.  One  great  difficulty  was  that  there  was  no 
machinery  for  news-gathering.  Coleman  was  his  own 
reporter  for  local  events,  and  had  no  money  to  hire  an 
assistant;  while  almost  all  news  from  outside  was  taken 
from  exchanges,  or  from  private  letters  whose  contents 
were  communicated  to  him  by  friends.  The  mails  were 
slow  and  irregular.  A  still  larger  difficulty  was  that  the 
news  sense  had  been  developed  neither  by  editors  nor  by 
the  public  to  whose  demands  the  editors  catered. 

Illustrations  of  what  would  now  seem  an  incredible 
blindness  to  important  events  might  be  multiplied  indefi- 
nitely. A  New  Yorker  who  wishes  to  find  in  old  files  a 
real  account  of  the  first  trial  of  Fulton's  Clermont  will 
search  in  vain.  No  report  worthy  of  the  name  was  writ- 
ten, the  brief  newspaper  references  being  meager  and 
unsatisfactory.  Yet  there  was  much  interest  in  Fulton, 
and  the  Evening  Post  of  July  22,  sixteen  days  before  the 
experiment  with  the  steamboat,  did  give  a  good  account 
of  his  successful  effort  in  the  harbor  to  use  torpedoes. 
More  than  twenty  years  later  the  Evening  Post  carried 
an  advance  notice  of  the  opening  of  the  Baltimore  and 
Ohio  Railway,  the  real  beginning  of  American  railroad 
traffic;  but,  like  most  other  papers,  it  gave  no  report  of 
the  actual  occurrence. 

Sometimes  news  was  deliberately  rejected.  In  1805 
Coleman  published  a  long  series  of  articles  discussing  Jef- 
ferson's second  inaugural  address,  but  the  address  itself 
he  never  printed;  it  being  assumed  that  iii^«rested  men 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  POST  79 

could  find  it  in  the  Democratic  press.  Again,  when  in  the 
autumn  of  18 12  a  gang  of  robbers  entered  eight  of  the 
largest  stores  of  the  city  in  succession,  during  a  few  days, 
and  took  goods  valued  at  $3,000,  the  editor  made  no 
effort  to  place  the  particulars  before  his  readers;  could 
they  not  ask  the  neighborhood  gossips?  He  contented 
himself  with  a  warning  to  the  public  and  to  the  watch. 
On  Jan.  10,  1803,  early  in  the  evening,  the  house  of  a 
well-to-do  tallow  chandler  named  Willis,  in  Roosevelt 
Street,  was  robbed.  Next  day  the  paper  made  only  a 
casual  allusion  to  it,  naively  adding:  "For  particulars  see 
the  advertisement  in  this  evening's  Post/'  The  obliging 
Mr.  Willis,  in  advertising  a  reward,  had  stated  the  de- 
tails of  his  loss,  which  came  to  $2,500  or  $2,600  in  cash. 
But  on  other  occasions  the  editor  made  an  earnest  but 
unavailing  effort  to  procure  the  news.  A  single  issue  of 
1826  affords  two  examples:  private  letters  in  town  had 
brought  hints  of  a  duel  between  Randolph  and  Clay,  but 
it  proved  impossible  to  verify  the  reports,  while  of  a  fire 
that  morning  in  Chambers  Street  no  accurate  facts  were 
ascertainable.  In  September,  1809,  the  Common  Council 
dismissed  William  Mooney,  a  Tammany  leader,  from  the 
superintendency  of  the  almshouse,  and  men  surmised  that 
the  grounds  were  corruption.  A  few  days  later  Coleman 
published  the  following  notice : 

Information  Wanted: — I  have  been  waiting  some  days  in  hopes 
that  some  person  would  furnish  me  with  facts  which  led  to  the 
disaster  which  on  Monday  last  befell  the  Grand  Sachem,  who 
lately  presided  over  the  almshouse.  Surely  the  citizens  have  a 
right  to  be  Informed  of  such  things.  Will  any  person,  acquainted 
with  the  circumstances,  communicate  them  to  the  editor? 

Unfortunately,  no  informed  person  came  forward. 
During  the  last  days  of  the  War  of  18 12,  commercial 
firms  constantly  tried  to  obtain  private  news  of  the  prog- 
ress of  the  peace  negotiations.  There  is  a  pathetic  note 
of  frustration  in  the  Evening  Post's  item  of  Nov.  29, 
1 8 14:  "Considering  the  public  entitled  to  all  the  infor- 
mation in  our  power,  we  barely  mention  that  there  is  a 


go  THE  EVENING  POST 

London  paper  of  the  28th  ult.  in  town,  which  Is  kept 
from  the  public  eye  at  present.  We  will  not  conjecture 
what  the  contents  are,  but  merely  venture  to  say  that  it  is 
probably  something  of  moment." 

Nor  was  the  news,  collected  under  such  great  disad- 
vantages, quite  as  accurate  as  news  is  now  required  to  be. 
In  August,  1805,  the  evening  papers  caused  much  stir  and 
conjecture  in  the  little  city  by  announcing  that  Jefferson 
had  called  the  Senate  together  upon  important  foreign 
business.  Next  day  they  explained  that  this  false  report 
had  originated  with  a  mischievous  young  man  who  had 
arrived  from  Philadelphia  in  the  mail  stage,  and  whose 
name  they  would  like  to  learn.  Coleman  was  somewhat 
embarrassed  two  years  later  to  have  to  state : 

We  are  requested  by  Mr.  Wright  to  contradict  the  account 
published  yesterday  of  his  being  lost  in  crossing  the  North  River. 

When  in  18 10  the  town  was  on  tiptoe  to  learn  the 
President's  January  message  to  Congress,  or  as  Coleman 
called  it,  "the  great  War-Whoop,"  two  conflicting  sum- 
maries reached  the  evening  papers  at  once;  one  communi- 
cated by  a  gentleman  who  arrived  direct  from  Washing- 
ton, and  one  obtained  through  the  Philadelphia  Aurora 
from  a  commercial  express  rider.  While  waiting  fuller 
news,  they  could  only  print  both  and  let  readers  take  their 
choice.  During  the  spring  of  18 12,  with  war  impending, 
the  press  was  replete  with  mere  gossip  and  rumor,  some- 
times well  founded,  more  often  baseless.  As  late  as  1826 
there  occurred  a  striking  illustration  of  the  inaccuracy  of 
much  that  passed  for  foreign  news,  and  of  the  difficulty 
which  truth  experienced  in  overtaking  error.  The  Greek 
revolution  had  broken  out  in  1821,  and  the  massacres  of 
Chios  and  Constantinople,  the  victory  of  Marco  Boz- 
zaris,  and  the  death  of  Byron  had  kindled  a  flame  of 
phil-hellenism  throughout  America.  On  April  26,  1826, 
the  Greek  stronghold  of  Missolonghi  was  captured.  De- 
spite this,  late  in  May  there  reached  New  York  a  cir- 
cumstantial account  of  the  relief  of  Missolonghi,  the 
slaughter  of  the  Turks,  the  death  of  their  hated  com- 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  POST  8i 

mander  Ibrahim,  and  the  brightening  prospect  of  Greek 
liberty,  all  of  which  the  newspapers  spread  forth  under 
such  captions  as  "Glorious  News  From  Greece."  Early 
In  June  this  was  contradicted  by  the  true  news.  Never- 
theless, wrote  Coleman  on  July  20,  "on  taking  up  a  late 
Tennessee  newspaper  we  find  that  the  'Glorious  News' 
has  just  reached  our  western  neighbors  and  that  they  are 
now  only  beginning  to  rejoice  at  the  deliverance  of 
Missolonghl." 

We  can  most  vividly  appreciate  just  how  far  the  early 
newspapers  succeeded — for  the  Evening  Post  was  typical 
of  the  best  sheets — and  how  far  they  failed  as  purveyors 
of  current  Information,  by  listing  the  materials  presented 
in  a  single  week  chosen  at  random.  In  the  seven  days 
May  9-14  inclusive,  1803,  Coleman  published  the  fol- 
lowing Intelligence : 

FOREIGN  DOMESTIC 

War  Rumored  Between  Britain  and  Fire  in  Troy,  N.  Y. 

France  Editor      Duane      Apologizes      for 

Monroe  Arrives  at  Havre  Libel 

French  Hunt  Haitians  With  Blood-  Cheetham  Fined  $200  for  Libel 

hounds  Column  on  Harlem  Races 

Two  Columns  on  British  Penal  Re-  Paine    Publishes   Letter    from   Jef- 

form  ferson 
French   Prefect   Reaches   New   Or-  Grainger's   Record   as   Postmaster- 
leans  General 
British  Give  South  Africa  to  Dutch  Fire  in  New  York  Coach  Factory 
Demands    of    Dey    of    Algiers    on  Two  Benefits  at  Local  Theatre 

Powers  Election   Dispute   in   Ulster  County 

More     Rumors     of     Anglo-French  Election  Incident  at  Pawling 

War  Advance       Sale       of       Marshall's 

Agrarian  Violence  in  Ireland  "Washington" 

London   Stock-Market  Fluctuations  XYZ  Affair  Reviewed 
European      Trade      Rivalries      in 

Levant 
French     Troops     Concentrate      in 

Holland 


This  was  absolutely  all,  and  many  of  these  subjects 
were  treated  In  only  a  few  lines,  and  with  obvious  haziness 
and  Inexactitude.  It  is  plain  that  the  week's  budget  did 
carry  much  illumination  to  the  public  mind;  but  it  is  also 
plain  that  only  a  tiny  part  of  the  world's  activities  were 
being  covered,  that  city  news  was  appallingly  neglected, 


82  THE  EVENING  POST 

and  that  a  modern  journal  treating  each  day  hundreds 
of  subjects  would  then  have  been  inconceivable. 

Yet  the  press  could  boast  of  occasional  feats  of  news 
presentation  which  would  do  credit  to  journalism  even 
now.  The  political  meetings  of  each  party  were  almost 
always  well  reported  by  its  own  party  organs.  In  1807 
Burr's  trial  was  covered  for  the  Evening  Post  by  a  special 
correspondent  whose  reports  were  dry — there  was  no 
description  of  scene  or  personages,  no  attention  to  empha- 
sis, and  little  direct  quotation  of  counsel  or  witnesses — 
but  were  also  expert,  comprehensive,  and  minute.  It 
is  well  known  that  the  greatest  of  American  earthquakes 
occurred  in  1 8 1 1  In  the  Missouri  and  Arkansas  country 
just  west  of  the  Mississippi.  The  Evening  Post  was  for- 
tunate enough  to  obtain  a  three-column  account  of  it, 
vivid,  intelligent,  and  thrilling,  from  the  pen  of  an  ob- 
server who  witnessed  it  from  a  point  near  New  Madrid. 
The  special  Albany  letters  were  fair ;  for  years  the  Eve- 
ning Post  derived  occasional  bits  of  Inside  information 
from  Federalist  Congressmen,  and  made  good  use  of 
them;  and  its  London  correspondence,  which  began  in 
1 8 19  with  an  account  of  the  Holkham  sheep-shearing,  was 
on  a  level  with  much  London  correspondence  of  to-day. 
One  of  the  most  extravagant  items  in  the  Evening  Post's 
first  account  book  is  $50  for  getting  President  Madison's 
annual  message  of  1809  to  New  York  by  "pony  express." 
An  attempt  was  made  to  use  carrier  pigeons  when  the 
House  in  1824  elected  J.  Q.  Adams  President,  but  it 
proved  a  failure. 

After  the  commencement  of  the  War  of  18 12,  as  we 
should  expect,  much  more  assiduous  attention  was  paid 
to  news.  From  five  columns,  the  space  allotted  rapidly 
rose  to  six,  seven,  and  even  eight.  Almost  always,  of 
course,  it  was  very  late  news.  Word  of  the  first  disaster 
of  the  war,  Hull's  surrender  at  Detroit,  was  published  by 
the  Evening  Post  on  Aug.  31,  18 12.  The  capitulation 
has  occurred  on  the  i6th,  and  the  news  came  by  two 
routes.  An  express  rider  had  carried  it  from  Sandusky 
to  Cleveland,  and  thence  it  was  brought  by  a  postal  car- 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  POST  83 

rier  to  Warren,  Pa.,  on  the  2 2d,  so  that  Pittsburgh  had 
it  on  the  23d,  and  Philadelphia  on  the  night  of  the  29th. 
At  the  same  time  it  was  coming  by  a  southern  path.  Hull 
sent  a  messenger  direct  to  Washington,  who  arrived  in  the 
capital  on  the  28th,  and  whose  dispatches  were  relayed 
northward. 

Hard  on  the  heels  of  this  blow  came  cheering  news. 
The  Constitution  met  the  Guerriere  on  Aug.  19,  and  Capt. 
Hull's  victory  was  given  to  the  public  by  Boston  papers 
of  the  31st,  and  New  York  papers  of  Sept.  2.  Thus 
both  the  defeat  and  the  victory  were  known  to  most 
Northerners  about  a  fortnight  after  they  took  place.  Of 
"the  fall  of  Fort  Dearborn  at  Chicagua,"  on  Aug.  15, 
the  famous  massacre.  New  Yorkers  did  not  learn  until 
Sept.  24,  when  a  brief  dispatch  from  Buffalo  was  inserted 
in  an  obscure  corner  by  Coleman.  All  Washington  news 
at  this  time  still  required  two  full  days  for  transmission, 
and  often  more.  When  Madison  on  Nov.  3,  18 12,  sent 
a  message  to  Congress  at  high  noon,  the  Evening  Post 
announced  that  it  and  the  Gazette  had  clubbed  together 
to  pay  for  a  pony  express,  and  that  it  hoped  to  issue  an 
extra  with  the  news  the  following  afternoon.  It  also 
stated  that  the  previous  evening  an  express  had  passed 
through  the  city  towards  New  England,  reputed  to  be 
bearing  the  substance  of  the  message,  and  to  have  trav- 
ersed the  340  miles  from  Washington  in  nineteen  hours. 
Next  day  the  editor  stated  that  the  express  had  really 
come  from  Baltimore  only,  and  that  it  had  been  paid  for 
by  gamblers  to  bear  the  first  numbers  drawn  in  the  Sus- 
quehanna lottery  in  advance  of  the  mails.  These  numbers 
had  been  delivered  to  the  gamblers  in  New  York,  who 
went  to  the  proper  offices  and  took  insurance  to  the 
amount  of  $30,000  against  their  coming  up  that  day; 
but  the  offices  refused  payment.  It  was  nearly  thirty- 
six  hours  before  Madison's  message  reached  New  York 
from  Washington,  and  it  was  not  printed  until  Nov.  5. 

Late  in  the  fall  occurred  an  interesting  example  of  the 
constant  conflict  of  that  day  between  rumor  and  fact. 
Gen.  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer  sacrificed  a  force  of  900 


84  THE  EVENING  POST 

men  at  Queenstown  Heights,  just  across  the  Niagara 
River,  on  Oct.  13.  Seven  days  later  the  Evening  Post 
in  a  column  headed  "postscript"  gave  the  city  its  first 
intimation  that  a  battle  had  occurred.  Just  as  the  paper 
at  two  o'clock  was  going  to  press,  it  said,  the  Albany  boat 
had  come  in  with  word  from  Geneva  that  an  army  surgeon 
had  arrived  there  from  Buffalo,  and  had  reported  a  great 
American  victory — the  capture  of  Queenstown  and  1,500 
prisoners.  But  the  steamer  also  brought  a  rival  report 
from  the  Canandaigua  Repository  of  a  disaster,  in  which 
hundreds  had  been  killed  and  hundreds  captured.  The 
city  could  only  wait  and  fear  as  the  following  day  passed 
without  news.  Finally,  on  the  afternoon  of  the  22d,  the 
Albany  steamboat  hove  in  sight  again,  and  a  great  crowd 
thronging  the  pier  was  aghast  to  learn  that  Van  Rens- 
selaer had  lost  a  battle  and  a  small  army. 

In  the  closing  days  of  the  war  this  episode  was  re- 
versed, the  rumor  of  bad  news  being  followed  by  a 
truthful  report  of  good.  On  Jan.  20,  18 15,  the  whole 
city  was  in  suspense  as  to  the  fate  of  New  Orleans. 
Nothing  had  been  heard  from  Louisiana  for  a  month, 
and  three  mails  were  overdue,  which  boded  ill,  for  every 
one  knew  that  Sir  Edward  Pakenham  and  his  16,000 
British  veterans  were  ready  to  move  upon  the  place.  "It 
is  generally  believed  here  that  if  an  attack  has  been 
made  on  Orleans,  the  city  has  fallen,"  said  the  Evening 
Post.  "But  some  doubt  whether  the  British,  having  the 
perfect  command  of  all  the  waters  about  the  city,  and 
having  it  in  their  power  to  command  the  river  above,  will 
not  resort  to  a  more  bloodless,  but  a  certain  method  of 
reducing  the  city."  On  Jan.  23  the  Evening  Post  pub- 
lished some  inconclusive  information  received  in  a  letter 
from  a  New  Orleans  judge,  dated  just  before  the  pre- 
liminary and  indecisive  battle  of  Dec.  23.  "We  have 
cause  of  apprehension,"  Coleman  wrote,  "that  to-mor- 
row's mail  will  bring  tidings  of  the  winding  up  of  the 
catastrophe."  New  Yorkers  were  particularly  concerned 
because  city  merchants  owned  a  great  part  of  the  $3,200,- 
000  worth  of  cotton  stored  in  New  Orleans.    But  a  week, 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  POST  85 

ten  days,  and  two  weeks  passed  while  little  news  was 
procured  and  the  tension  grew  steadily  greater.  Finally, 
on  the  morning  of  Feb.  6,  three  mails  were  received  at 
once,  with  New  Orleans  letters  bearing  dates  as  late  as 
Jan.  13,  five  days  after  Jackson  had  bloodily  repulsed 
Packenham.  The  tidings  fell  upon  New  York  with  a 
tremendous  shock  of  surprise  and  joy,  and  the  Evening 
Post  hastened  to  publish  them  In  two  columns  and  with 
Its  closest  approach  to  the  yet  uninvented  headline. 

Under  the  stress  of  war  the  first  news  with  conscious 
color,  pathos,  and  strong  human  Interest  began  to  be 
written.  The  earliest  account  filled  with  human  touches 
dealt  with  an  Incident  of  the  privateering  of  which  New 
York  harbor  was  a  busy  center.  The  privateer  Franklin, 
two  months  after  hostilities  began,  returned  from  the 
Nova  Scotia  coast  with  a  strange  prize — an  old,  crazy, 
black-sided  fishing  schooner  of  thirty-eight  tons,  less  than 
half  the  size  of  a  good  Hudson  River  market  boat.  Cole- 
man, going  aboard,  found  the  owner  a  fine  gray-haired 
woman,  a  widow.  The  little  craft  was  her  all.  Wrapped 
In  a  rusty  black  coat  as  tattered  as  Its  sails,  "she  cried  as 
If  her  heart  would  break"  while  she  told  the  editor  how 
she  had  left  four  children  behind  her  and  had  pleaded  with 
her  captor  not  to  be  taken  so  far  from  home.  It  need  not 
be  said  that  the  publicity  Coleman  gave  to  this  incident 
helped  persuade  the  captain  of  the  privateer  that  honor 
obliged  him  to  send  the  fisherwoman  back. 

Two  years  later  occurred  an  incident  the  humorous 
values  of  which  the  Evening  Post  did  not  miss.  Mr. 
Wise,  part-proprietor  of  the  Museum  in  New  York,  with 
a  mixture  of  patriotic  and  business  motives,  had  an  ex- 
tensive panorama  painted  of  the  glorious  Yankee  naval 
victories  of  18 12  and  18 13.  Having  got  all  the  New 
York  sixpences  that  he  could  with  it,  he  packed  it  up 
together  with  the  lamps  and  other  fixtures  for  its  exhibi- 
tion, and  a  valuable  hand-organ,  and  set  sail  for  Charles- 
ton to  show  It  there.  On  the  second  day  out  from  Sandy 
Hook,   the   British   frigate  Forth   captured  -the   vessel. 


86  THE  EVENING  POST 

Greatly  amused,  the  commander  promptly  set  the  pano- 
rama up  for  inspection : 

So  valuable  did  the  captain  of  the  Forth  consider  his  prize,  that 
in  the  evening  of  the  day  he  made  his  capture,  he  illuminated  his 
ships  with  the  lamps  belonging  to  the  panorama,  and  kept  up  a 
merry  tune  upon  the  organ.  In  the  course  of  their  merriment 
they  asked  Mr.  Wise  if  it  could  play  Yankee  Doodle.  Upon  his 
answering  in  the  affirmative,  they  immediately  set  the  organ  to 
that  tune,  and  in  a  sailor  step  made  the  decks  shake.  The  captain 
of  the  Forth  said  he  intended  to  take  the  paintings  to  Halifax 
and  make  a  fortune  by  exhibiting  them. 

But,   remarked  Coleman  patriotically: 

The  frigate  President,  we  understand,  is  preparing  for  a  cruise 
now  under  the  command  of  Decatur,  and  if  they  will  have  a  little 
patience  we  will  furnish  another  historical  subject  for  their 
amusement. 

As  the  war  drew  near  its  close,  sometimes  even  ten 
columns  of  news  were  furnished,  and  on  several  occasions, 
as  that  of  Gen.  Hull's  trial,  a  one-sheet  supplement  was 
issued.  The  first  cartoon  in  the  Evening  Post  was  evoked 
on  April  i8,  1812,  by  the  act  of  Congress  cutting  off 
foreign  trade  by  land.  It  showed  two  large  tree-trunks 
in  close  juxtaposition,  one  labeled  "Embargo"  and  the 
other  "Non-Importation  Act,"  with  a  fat  snake  held 
immovable  between  them;  from  the  snake's  mouth  were 
issuing  the  words,  "What's  the  matter  now?"  and  from 
its  tail  the  answer,  "I  can't  get  out!"  Such  wit  was 
about  equal  to  that  of  the  second  cartoon,  on  April  25, 
1 8 14,  which  showed  a  terrapin  (the  Embargo  was  often 
called  "the  terrapin  policy")  flat  upon  its  back,  expiring 
as  Madison  stabbed  it  with  a  saber,  but  still  clinging  to  the 
President  with  claws  and  teeth.  Below  was  some  dog- 
gerel expressing  the  determination  of  the  terrapin  to  hold 
on  until  it  dragged  Madison  down  and  slew  him.  Evi- 
dently readers  were  obtuse,  for  the  next  day  appeared  a 
solemn  "Explanation  of  the  emblematic  figures  in  yester- 
day's paper."    But  as  yet  neither  news  nor  cartoons  were 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  POST  87 

published  on  the  first  page,  which  was  sacred,  as  in  Eng- 
lish papers  of  to-day,  to  advertisements. 

Except  for  one  advance  intimation,  the  news  of  peace 
might  have  been  as  unexpected  as  that  of  the  victory  of 
New  Orleans.  This  intimation  came  on  Feb.  9,  in  a 
curiously  roundabout  manner.  A  privateer  cruising  in 
British  waters  captured  a  prize  which  bore  London  news- 
papers dating  to  Nov.  28,  and  carried  them  to  Salem, 
Mass.,  whence  their  contents  were  reprinted  all  over  the 
North.  They  contained  the  speech  of  the  Prince  Regent 
on  Nov.  II,  and  the  proceedings  of  the  Commons  imme- 
diately afterwards,  holding  out  hope  for  a  prompt  ending 
of  the  war. 

The  news  of  peace  itself  electrified  the  city  two  days 
later,  reaching  it  by  the  British  sloop  Favorite,  which 
bore  one  of  the  secretaries  of  the  American  legation  in 
London,  at  eight  o'clock  on  Saturday  evening.  No  jour- 
nal was  so  indecorous  as  to  issue  a  special  Sunday  edition, 
but  on  Monday  the  Evening  Post  contained  a  full  account 
of  the  delirium  of  rejoicing  with  which  the  intelligence 
was  greeted.  Nearly  every  window  in  the  principal  streets 
was  illuminated,  and  Broadway  was  filled  with  laughing, 
huzzaing,  exalted  people,  carrying  torches  or  candles,  and 
jamming  the  way  for  two  hours.  On  Tuesday  the  Even- 
ing Post  recorded  that  sugar  had  fallen  from  $26  a  hun- 
dred-weight to  $12.50,  tea  from  $2.25  a  pound  to  $1,  and 
tin  from  $80  a  box  to  $25,  while  specie,  which  had  been 
at  22  per  cent,  premium,  was  now  only  at  2  per  cent.,  and 
six  per  cent.  Government  stock  had  risen  from  76  to  86. 
The  wharves  were  an  animated  scene,  ship  advertisements 
were  pouring  In,  and  "it  is  really  wonderful  to  see  the 
change  produced  in  a  few  hours  in  the  City  of  New  York." 

And  what  of  the  Napoleonic  wars?  All  European 
news  was  then  obtained  from  files  of  foreign  papers,  some 
of  which  came  to  New  York  journals  direct,  and  some 
of  which  were  supplied  by  merchants  and  shippers.  It 
was  usual,  whenever  a  packet  arrived  with  a  fresh  batch, 
to  cut  the  domestic  news  to  a  few  paragraphs,  stop  any 
series  of  editorial  articles  in  hand,  and  for  several  days 


88  THE  EVENING  POST 

fill  the  columns  with  extracts  and  summaries.  Though 
In  1812  a  ship  came  from  Belfast  in  the  remarkable  time 
of  twenty-two  days,  forty  days  was  the  average  from 
London  or  Liverpool,  and  European  news  was  hence 
from  one  to  two  months  late.  Sometimes  a  traveler,  and 
frequently  a  ship-captain,  brought  news  by  word  of  mouth. 
A  detailed  account  from  the  London  prints  of  Napo- 
leon's marriage  at  Vienna  was  not  published  by  the 
Evening  Post  till  ten  weeks  after  the  event.  Wellington 
stormed  Badajos  on  April  7,  18 12,  and  the  Evening  Post 
announced  the  fact  on  June  1 1,  or  more  than  two  months 
later;  while  the  battle  of  Salamanca  that  summer,  where 
Wellington  ''beat  forty  thousand  In  forty  minutes,"  was 
not  known  for  sixty-six  days,  the  news  coming  in  part 
through  a  traveler  who  arrived  from  Cadiz  at  Salem, 
and  was  interviewed  by  a  correspondent  there.  It  was 
the  middle  of  October  when  the  armies  of  Napoleon  and 
the  Allies  took  position  for  the  battle  of  Leipsic,  and 
Coleman  was  not  able  to  publish  his  three-column  sum- 
mary from  a  London  paper  till  just  after  New  Year's. 
When  the  description  of  the  battle  of  Toulouse  came  in, 
there  occurred  an  office  tragedy: 

Here  ought  to  follow  an  account  of  a  great  battle  between  Lord 
Wellington  and  Soult  [explained  Coleman  after  an  abrupt  break 
in  the  news],  and  other  selections  amounting  to  about  two  col- 
umns, but  It  being  necessary  to  get  it  set  up  abroad,  the  boy  in 
bringing  it  home  blundered  down  in  the  street,  and  threw  the  types 
into  irretrievable  confusion.     It  will  be  given  to-morrow. 

After  that  wily  and  selfish  old  invalid  Bourbon,  Louis 
XVIII,  given  his  crown  by  the  Allies,  visited  London  In 
state,  a  spectator  sent  a  vivid  account  of  his  triumphal 
passage  up  Piccadilly  to  the  Evening  Post.  Louis  had 
passed  so  near  that  this  tourist  could  have  touched  him. 
"He  is  very  corpulent,  with  a  round  face,  dark  eyes, 
prominent  features,  the  character  of  countenance  much 
like  that  of  the  portraits  of  the  other  Louises;  a  pleasant 
face;  his  eyes  were  suffused  with  tears."  Then  came 
the  Hundred  Days;  and  the  greatest  European  news  of 
all  was  thus  introduced  on  Aug.  2,  1815  : 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  POST  89 


IMPORTANT 

We  received  from  our  correspondent  at  Boston,  by  this  morn- 
ing's mail,  the  following  important  news,  which  we  hasten  to  lay 
before  our  readers: 

From  Our  Correspondent, 
Office  of  the  Boston  Daily  Advertiser, 

July3i,  1815. 
A  gentleman  has  just  arrived  in  town  from  a  vessel  which  he 
left  in  the  harbor,  bringing  London  dates  from  June  24.  The 
principal  article  is  an  official  dispatch  of  Lord  Wellington's,  dated 
Waterloo,  June  19,  giving  a  detailed  account  of  a  general  engage- 
ment. 

There  followed  Wellington's  succinct  dispatch.  Its 
modesty  of  tone  misled  many  New  York  supporters  of 
Napoleon,  who  made  heavy  bets  that  Wellington  had 
really  been  drubbed,  and  who  when  fuller  news  came 
had  to  pay  them. 

Even  In  the  third  decade  of  the  century  news  of  every 
kind  was  unconscionably  slow.  The  Evening  Post  of 
June  20,  1825,  came  out  late  because  the  presses  had  been 
held  till  the  last  minute  In  the  vain  hope  of  giving  par- 
ticulars of  the  dedication  of  the  Bunker  Hill  monument 
on  the  17th;  the  steamboat  from  New  London  having 
arrived  without  any  Intelligence.  Only  on  the  next  day 
was  a  narrative  carried,  and  though  It  filled  four  columns, 
it  contained  no  extracts  from  Webster's  oration. 

One  year  later  one  of  the  most  Impressive  coincidences 
in  our  history  afforded  a  striking  illustration  of  the  long 
wait  forced  upon  each  section  of  the  United  States  for 
Information  from  outside  Its  borders.  The  fiftieth  anni- 
versary of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  cele- 
brated with  fervor  In  every  hamlet  and  city,  though  In 
New  York  a  storm  of  wind  and  rain  Interfered  with  the 
ceremonies.  Every  American  thought  of  the  two  aged  ex- 
Presldents,  one  the  author  of  the  Declaration,  the  other 
the  radical  patriot  who  had  done  most  to  forward  It  in 
Congress.  At  i  o'clock  In  the  afternoon  Jefferson  died 
at  Montlcello.    At  6  o'clock  John  Adams,  after  remark- 


90  THE  EVENING  POST 

ing  that  every  report  of  the  celebratory  cannon  had  added 
five  minutes  to  his  life,  passed  away  at  Quincy.  Which 
news  would  reach  New  York  first?  The  Evening  Post 
published  the  death  of  Adams  on  the  seventh,  and  the 
demise  of  Jefferson  on  the  eighth.  Then  began  to  come 
evidence  that  the  two  circles  of  intelligence  were  more 
and  more  overlapping  each  other,  and,  on  the  tenth,  Cole- 
man commented : 

The  newspapers  of  the  North  and  East  are  filled  with  remarks 
upon  the  death  of  John  Adams,  while  those  from  the  South  are 
equally  filled  with  the  obsequies  of  Jefferson,  neither  section  having 
yet  heard  of  the  loss  sustained  by  the  other.  How  much  is  the 
surprise  at  each  extremity  of  the  country  destined  to  be  increased 
by  the  information  which  is  now  traveling  from  the  South  to  the 
North,  and  from  the  North  to  the  South!  Last  evening,  in  all 
probability,  President  Adams  heard  of  the  death  of  his  father;  at 
about  the  same  moment  news  of  the  decease  of  Jefferson  must 
have  reached  Quincy. 

To  a  large  proportion  of  subscribers — the  wholesalers, 
retailers,  auctioneers,  shippers,  and  manufacturers — the 
most  interesting  news  was  generally  to  be  found  in  the 
column  headed  "Evening  Post  Marine  List,"  and  in 
the  advertisements.  The  shipping  news  was  at  this  time 
collected  with  the  utmost  attention  to  accuracy  and 
completeness,  for  it  was  as  much  one  of  the  journal's 
grounds  for  claiming  a  superior  position  as  its  financial 
news  became  after  the  Civil  War.  A  special  employee 
obtained  it  from  the  custom  house,  counting  rooms,  and 
wharves,  and  regularly  gathered  some  dozens  or  even 
scores  of  such  items  as  the  following: 

CLEARED,  Brig  Caroline,  Lee,  TenerifFe,  by  N.  L.  and  G. 
Griswold;  schrs.  Miranda,  Sayre,  St.  Augustine,  by  the  captains, 
Linnet,  Paterson,  Shelburne,  by  do. 

ARRIVED,  The  schr.  Red-Bird,  Walker,  in  12  days  from 
Washington,  N.  C,  with  447  bbl.  of  naval  stores,  700  bushels 
of  corn,  for  Mr.  Gardiner,  of  Rhode  Island.  Spoke,  five  leagues 
from  the  capes  of  Virginia,  the  schr.  Farmer's  Daughter,  24  days 
from  Port  Morant  for  Marblehead,  the  captain  informed  that  he 
saw  a  large  ship  under  jury  masts,  standing  in  for   Havanna; 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  POST  91 

being  about  two  leagues  distant;  supposed  to  be  English.  At  the 
same  time,  a  brig  to  leeward,  with  her  main-top-masts  gone  and 
both  pumps  agoing;  she  had  black  sides  and  supposed  to  be  an 
eastern  brig,  &  was  making  for  Havanna. 

Sloop  Harriet,  Lynds,  60  days  from  Jamaica,  with  rum,  to 
George  Pratt.  Captain  L.  has  experienced  the  most  distressing 
weather,  and  his  crew  would  have  starved  had  it  not  been  for 
supplies  received  from  3  vessels  which  he  fell  in  with.  On  the 
5th  of  Nov.  he  met  with  the  schr.  Goliath,  Pinkham  (arrived  at 
this  port),  then  out  35  days;  and  though  Captain  P.  was  then 
short,  and  on  allowance,  he  humanely  divided,  as  it  were,  his 
last  mouthful  with  Captain  Lynds.  Nov.  10,  in  lat.  33,  fell  in 
with  the  bark  Calliope,  46  days  from  Kingston  for  Norfolk — 
gave  her  some  water,  and  received  some  bread  and  beef.  Nov.  14, 
in  lat.  36,  got  some  bread  from  the  ship  Lovina,  18  days  from 
Savannah  for  Philadelphia. 

Then,  as  now,  advertisements  were  the  principal  sup- 
port of  newspapers,  though  they  yielded  a  revenue  that 
seems  pitiful  by  modern  standards.  Until  some  years 
after  Coleman  died  in  1828,  merchants  paid  $40  a  year 
for  the  privilege  of  advertising,  a  subscription  being 
thrown  in.  It  was  left  to  their  sense  of  fairness  not  to 
present  advertisements  of  undue  length,  and  ^'display  ads" 
were  of  course  unknown.  The  monthly  rate  was  $3.50, 
four  Insertions  could  be  had  for  a  dollar,  and  one  for 
fifty  cents.  A  study  of  the  first  ledger  of  the  Evening 
Post,  for  the  years  1 801-1804,  shows  that  the  largest 
receipts  from  a  single  firm  were  $276.49,  from  Bronson 
and  Chauncey.  The  publishers,  T.  and  J.  Swords,  paid 
in  eighteen  months  $157.55 — they  were  destined  to  be 
good  customers  of  the  Evening  Post  for  decades.  But 
nearly  all  the  accounts  were  for  small  amounts.  James 
Roosevelt,  the  wealthy  Pearl  Street  merchant,  paid  $57.37 
between  the  beginning  of  1802  and  Nov.  16,  1803; 
Minturn  and  Barker,  representing  two  families  long 
prominent  in  business,  paid  $39.55  In  the  same  period; 
and  Robert  Lenox  paid  $91.50.  This  ledger  is  a  virtual 
directory  of  all  important  business  and  professional  men 
of  the  city,  in  which  we  meet  entries  of  payments  for  sub- 
scriptions by  Hamilton,  Burr,  Rufus  King,  Oliver  Wol- 


92  THE  EVENING  POST 

cott,  Brockholst  Livingston,  Morgan  Lewis,  and  many 
other  notables. 

Ordinarily,  from  1801  to  1825,  of  the  twenty  short 
columns  all  but  four  or  five  were  devoted  to  advertise- 
ments. Shipping,  auctions,  wholesale^  stores  (seldom  re- 
tail), lotteries,  legal  notices,  and  the  theater  furnished 
most  of  the  patronage,  but  the  range  of  advertising  was 
surprising.    In  1802  we  find  such  insertions  as  these: 

ST.  CROIX  RUM. — 50  puncheons,  just  arrived  per  the  brig 
Harriet,  from  St.  Croix,  now  landing  at  Schermerhorn's  Wharf. 
For  sale  by  CURRIE  &  WHITNEY,  47  Front  Street. 

FOR  SALE.— A  likely  Negro  Wench,  16  years  old— sold  for 
no  fault.  For  terms,  enquire  of  WILLIAM  LEAYCROFT, 
109  Liberty  Street. 

TAKE  NOTICE 

LOTTERY  TICKETS  to  be  had  at  the  Book  and  Stationery 
Store  of  NAPHTALI  JUDAH,  No.  84  Maiden-Lane.  Tick- 
ets in  the  Lottery  No.  i,  for  the  encouragement  of  Literature — 
$25,  the  highest  prize — for  sale  in  Halves,  Quarters,  and  Eighth 
Parts.  The  Lottery  will  positively  commence  drawing  in  this 
city  on  the  first  Tuesday  in  February  next.  Owing  to  the  great 
demand  for  Tickets,  they  will  rise  from  the  present  price  of  six 
dollars  and  a  half,  in  a  few  days. 

Editor  Coleman  would  have  lifted  his  brows  had  he 
been  told  that  within  a  little  more  than  a  century  St. 
Croix  rum,  lotteries  to  encourage  literature,  and  the  sale 
of  likely  negro  wenches  would  all  be  outlawed. 

The  circulation  of  the  Evening  Post  rose  only  slowly, 
and  like  all  the  other  New  York  newspapers  of  the  time, 
until  after  the  War  of  18 12  it  found  the  struggle  for 
existence  a  harsh  one.  At  the  beginning  of  1804  the 
whole  group,  except  the  youngest  and  weakest,  Irving's 
Morning  Chronicle,  concerted  to  raise  their  yearly  sub- 
scription price  from  $8  to  $10;  this  meaning,  in  the  in- 
stance of  Coleman's  journal,  the  difference  between 
$9,600  and  $12,000  a  year.  The  reason  alleged  was  the 
heavy  increase  in  the  cost  of  labor  and  materials.  Jour- 
neymen printers,  recently  paid  $6  a  week,  were  now  ask- 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  POST  93 

Ing  $8;  the  falthfuUest  clerk  and  most  dogged  collector 
In  town  could  once  have  been  had  for  $300  a  year,  and 
now  any  such  employee  wanted  $400;  while  paper  had 
risen  until  it  cost  the  editor  $7,000  to  $8,000  a  year.  The 
Gazette  and  the  Mercantile  Advertiser  caused  much  ill- 
feeling  when  they  immediately  broke  faith  and  reverted 
to  the  $8  rate,  but  Coleman  stood  by  his  guns.  To  help 
in  holding  his  subscribers,  he  advanced  his  printing  hour 
from  four  p.  m.  to  two.  Year  after  year  there  was 
a  slight  increase  in  the  daily  circulation,  though  it  hardly 
kept  pace  with  the  growth  of  population;  in  18 15  it 
stood  at  1,580  copies  daily,  and  in  1820  at  1,843. 

Arrears  long  cost  New  York  editors  thp  same  sleepless 
nights  which  they  cost  the  owners  of  some  ill-managed 
country  journals  to-day.  City  residents  paid  regularly, 
for  they  could  be  reached  through  the  ten-pound  court 
if  they  did  not;  but  in  1805  Coleman  despairingly  af- 
firmed that  "not  one  In  a  hundred"  of  the  subscribers  to 
the  semi-weekly  were  prompt.  In  some  centers,  as  Bos- 
ton, from  $500  to  $1,000  was  due  the  Post  and  Herald, 
and  in  Kingston,  Canada,  more  than  $60  was  owed 
merely  for  postage.  "The  loss  that  arises  from  neglected 
arrearages  would  amount  to  not  less  than  30  per  cent.," 
lamented  the  editor.  It  was  necessary  to  send  a  col- 
lector up  through  New  York  and  New  England  to  Upper 
Canada,  stopping  for  money  all  along  the  mail  routes. 

When  Michael  Burnham  took  charge,  on  Nov.  16, 
1806,  business  affairs  were  greatly  systematized;  a  fact 
of  which  we  find  evidence  both  in  the  disappearance  of 
complaints  of  arrears,  and  in  the  ledgers  and  a  curious  old 
account  book,  1 801-18 10.  These  accounts  throw  much 
light  on  mechanical  details.  A  frequent  charge  for 
"skins"  presumably  refers  to  the  buckskins  which  were 
cut  and  rolled  into  balls,  soaked  in  ink,  and  then  used  by 
the  printers'  devils  to  pound  the  forms  and  thus  ink  the 
type.  Almost  daily  charges  appear  for  candles  and  quill 
pens.  The  journal  seems  to  have  paid  many  of  the  ex- 
penses of  apprentices,  for  there  are  numerous  entries  for 
"cloathing"  and  for  board  at  $3  a  week.    Coleman  drew 


94  THE  EVENING  POST 

upon  the  till  occasionally,  as  is  shown  by  an  item  of 
May  25,  1809:  "Boots  for  Mr.  Coleman,  $10."  But  all 
the  improvements  that  Burnham  made  in  the  business 
management  did  not  save  Coleman  at  times  before  18 10 
from  half-resolving  to  let  the  Evening  Post  die  and  to 
return  to  the  bar  again;  in  the  year  named,  when  he  was 
trying  to  arrange  his  English  debts,  he  confessed  such  a 
hesitation.  When  Duane  of  the  Aurora  charged  that  the 
Federalist  newspapers  in  seaport  towns  were  bribed  "by 
support  in  the  form  of  mercantile  advertisements*^  to 
oppose  all  Jefferson's  measures,  Coleman  bitterly  replied 
that  Federalist  merchants  actually  neglected  their  press. 
Taking  up  a  copy  of  the  chief  Federalist  organ  in  Phila- 
delphia, and  one  of  the  chief  neutral  journal  there,  he 
found  six  ship  advertisements  in  the  former  and  forty  in 
the  latter;  while  "on  a  particular  day  not  long  since 
the  New  York  Gazette  had  eighty-five  new  advertise- 
ments, the  Mercantile  Advertiser  sixty-one,  and  the  Eve- 
ning Post  nine." 

But  after  the  Embargo  and  the  war  the  skies  slowly 
brightened,  not  so  much  because  of  the  growing  circula- 
tion as  because  of  the  more  remunerative  advertisements. 
It  was  not  the  $40-a-year  advertising  that  paid,  but  the 
single  "ads"  inserted  at  the  new  rate  of  75  cents  a 
"square."  There  were  now  many  more  of  these.  Be- 
cause of  the  rapid  growth  of  the  city  a  brisk  trade  had 
sprung  up  in  Brooklyn  and  Manhattan  real  estate,  which 
by  1820  often  engrossed  from  one-eighth  to  one-fourth 
the  whole  paper.  Steamboats  had  come,  and  from  Capt. 
Vanderbilt's  little  Nautilus,  which  left  Whitehall  daily 
for  Staten  Island  at  10,  3,  and  6:30,  charging  twenty-five 
cents  a  trip,  to  the  big  Chancellor  Livingston  running  to 
Albany,  and  the  boat  Franklin,  which  offered  excursions 
to  Sandy  Hook,  with  a  green  turtle  dinner,  for  $2,  all 
were  advertising.  Competing  stage-coach  lines  were 
eager  to  impress  the  public  with  their  speedy  schedules; 
advertising  that  you  could  leave  the  City  Hotel  at  2  p.  m., 
packed  six  inside  and  eight  outside  a  gaudily  painted 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  POST  95 

vehicle,  and  be  at  Judd's  Tavern  In  Philadelphia  at  5  a.  m. 
the  next  day. 

Competition  continued  keen,  for  while  weak  news- 
papers died,  new  journals  were  constantly  being  estab- 
lished. The  most  important  of  these  were  Charles  Holt's 
Columbian,  established  in  1808  as  a  Clintonian  sheet;  the 
National  Advocate,  founded  in  18 13  and  edited  for  a 
time  by  Henry  Wheaton,  later  known  as  a  diplomat,  who 
supported  Madison;  and  the  American,  an  evening  journal 
first  published  in  the  spring  of  1 8 19,  and  edited  by  Charles 
King,  later  president  of  Columbia  College.  But  the  Eve- 
ning Post  kept  well  to  the  front,  as  is  shown  by  a  table 
of  comparative  circulations  in  May,   18 16: 

Mercantile  Advertiser,  2000        Gardiner's  Courier,  980 
Daily  Gazette,  1750  Columbian,  825 

Evening  Post,  1600  National  Advocate,  875 

Commercial  Advertiser,  1200 

The  circulation  of  the  Mercantile  Advertiser,  we  are 
told  by  Thurlow  Weed,  who  was  then  working  on  the 
Courier,  was  considered  enormous.  It  seldom  had  more 
than  one  and  a  half  or  two  columns  of  news,  while  Lang's 
Gazette  frequently  carried  only  a  half  column;  so  that 
the  Evening  Post  was  clearly  the  leading  newspaper. 
People  in  the  early  twenties  regarded  it  as  a  well  estab- 
lished institution.  Its  editor  had  become  one  of  the 
lesser  notables  of  the  city,  like  Dr.  Hosack  and  Dr. 
MItchill;  and  we  are  informed  by  a  contemporary  that 
he  "was  pronounced  by  his  advocates  a  field-marshal  in 
literature,  as  well  as  politics."  Poor  as  the  newspapers  of 
that  time  seem  by  modern  standards,  the  Evening  Post 
when  compared  with  the  London  Times  or  the  London 
Morning  Post  (for  which  Lamb  and  Coleridge  wrote) 
was  not  discreditable  to  New  York;  it  was  not  so  well 
written,  but  it  was  as  large  and  as  energetic  in  news- 
gathering  and  editorial  utterance. 


CHAPTER  FOUR 

LITERATURE  AND  DRAMA  IN  THE  EARLY  '^EVENING  POST" 

The  infancy  of  the  Evening  Post  coincided  with  the 
rise  of  the  Knickerbocker  school  of  letters,  with  which  its 
relations  were  always  intimate.  Its  first  editor  delighted 
in  his  old  age  to  speak  of  his  friendship  with  Irving,  Hal- 
leck,  Drake,  and  Paulding;  while  the  second  editor,  Bry- 
ant, escaped  inclusion  with  the  Knickerbockers  only  by 
the  fact  that  his  poetry  is  too  individual  and  independent 
to  fit  into  any  school  at  all. 

A  mellow  atmosphere  hangs  over  the  literary  annals 
of  New  York  early  in  the  last  century.  We  think  of 
young  Irving  wandering  past  the  stoops  of  quaint  gabled 
houses,  where  the  last  representatives  of  the  old  Dutch 
burghers  puffed  their  long  clay  pipes;  or  taking  country 
walks  within  view  of  the  broad  Tappan  Zee  and  the  sum- 
mer-flushed Catskills,  halting  whenever  he  could  get  a 
good  wife  to  favor  him  with  her  version  of  the  legends 
of  the  countryside.  We  think  of  that  brilliant  rainbow 
which  Halleck  stopped  to  admire  one  summer  evening 
in  front  of  a  coffee-house  near  Columbia  College,  ex- 
claiming: "If  I  could  have  my  wish,  it  should  be  to  lie 
in  the  lap  of  that  rainbow  and  read  Tom  Campbell" ;  of 
Paulding,  Henry  Brevoort,  and  others  of  the  "nine  worth- 
ies" holding  high  revel  in  "Cockloft  Hall"  on  the  out- 
skirts of  Newark;  and  of  Drake,  the  handsomest  young 
man  in  town,  like  Keats  studying  medicine  and  poetry, 
and  like  Keats  dying  of  consumption.  We  think  of  how 
the  young  men  of  the  city  were  less  interested  in  the  news 
of  Jena  and  Trafalgar  than  that  Moore  and  Jeffrey  had 
been  arrested  for  fighting  a  duel,  that  Mr.  Campbell  had 
improved  the  leisure  given  him  by  a  government  pension 
by  writing  "Gertrude  of  Wyoming,"  and  that  "The  Lay 
of  the  Last  Minstrel"  was  the  work  of  a  Scotch  border 
sheriff. 

96 


LITERATURE  AND  DRAMA  97 

When  the  first  Evening  Post  was  laid  on  six  hundred 
doorsteps  and  counters,  New  York  was  almost  ready  to 
assert  her  temporary  primacy  in  literature.  Irving  was 
studying  law  downtown  in  the  office  of  Brockholst  Livings- 
ton; Paulding,  four  and  a  half  years  older,  was  living  with 
his  sister,  Mrs.  William  Irving;  Cooper  was  at  school 
with  an  Englishman  in  Albany;  Halleck  was  a  child  of 
eleven  playing  about  the  Guilford  Green.  Bryant  at  Cum- 
mington  had  not  yet  begun  his  juvenile  scribblings,  but 
would  soon  do  so.  Charles  Brockden  Brown  had  just  re- 
turned to  the  city  from  a  summer  excursion,  and  was 
watching  the  sale  of  the  second  part  of  "Arthur  Mervyn." 
Coleman  sometimes  met  him  at  the  homes  of  John  Wells 
and  Anthony  Bleecker.  The  few  Americans  who  paid  any 
attention  to  letters  had  till  now  kept  their  gaze  chiefly 
upon  New  England  and  Philadelphia.  Dwight,  the  presi- 
dent of  Yale,  had  just  finished  revising  Watts's  Psalms, 
Joel  Barlow,  after  shining  abroad  as  a  diplomat  and  mak- 
ing a  fortune  in  speculation,  was  living  in  state  in  Paris, 
and  Trumbull,  another  of  the  Hartford  Wits,  had  just 
become  a  Connecticut  judge.  Nothing  better  than  the 
unreadable  "Columbiad"  of  Barlow  and  Dwight's  "Trav- 
els" was  now  to  be  expected  from  this  trio.  But  in  New 
York  by  1805,  though  there  was  as  yet  little  pure  litera- 
ture, there  was  an  intellectual  and  semi-literary  atmos- 
phere. In  addition  to  the  young  Knickerbockers,  men- 
tion should  be  made  of  Tom  Paine,  dividing  his  last 
days,  in  debt,  dirt,  and  dissipation,  between  New  York 
and  New  Rochelle;  and  Philip  Freneau,  who  frequently 
came  over  from  his  New  Jersey  seat. 

Washington  Irving  made  his  first  appearance  in  the 
Morning  Chronicle,  his  brother's  journal,  where  at  nine- 
teen he  published  his  "Jonathan  Oldstyle"  papers. 
Nearly  five  years  later  he,  his  brother  William,  and  his 
brother-in-law,  Paulding,  collaborated  upon  the  "Sal- 
magundi Papers,"  issued  in  leaflet  form  "upon  hot-pressed 
vellum  paper,  as  that  is  held  in  highest  estimation  for 
buckling  up  young  ladies'  hair."  The  twenty  numbers, 
full  of  whimsy,  mock  seriousness,  and  light  satire,  de- 


98  THE  EVENING  POST 

lighted  Coleman  not  as  literature  but  as  journalism.  He 
saw  that  his  long  editorials  attacking  Jefferson's  measures 
for  coast  defense  were  flimsy  weapons  compared  with  the 
humorous  "Plans  for  Defending  Our  Harbor,"  which 
he  copied  in  full,  saying  that  it  "hits  off  admirably  some  of 
the  late  philosophical,  economical  plans  which  our  phi- 
losophical, economical  administration  seems  to  be  intent 
on  our  adopting."  The  Evening  Post  termed  the  whole 
series  "the  pleasant  observations  of  one  who  is  a  legiti- 
mate descendant  of  Rabelais,  and  a  true  member  of  the 
Butler,  Swift,  and  Sterne  family."  Irving  perhaps  re- 
called this  praise  when  the  time  came  to  announce  his 
next  work. 

The  clever  expedient  by  which  announcement  and  ad- 
vertisement were  joined  is  familiar  to  all  readers  of  the 
"Knickerbocker  History  of  New  York."  Irving  handed 
to  Coleman  for  publication  in  the  Evening  Post  of  Oct. 
26,  1809,  the  following  notice: 

Distressing 

Left  his  lodgings  some  time  since,  and  has  not  since  been  heard 
of,  a  small  elderly  gentleman,  dressed  in  an  old  black  coat  and 
cocked  hat,  by  the  name  of  Knickerbocker.  As  there  are  some 
reasons  for  believing  he  is  not  entirely  in  his  right  mind,  and  as 
great  anxiety  is  entertained  about  him,  any  information  concern- 
ing him,  left  either  at  the  Columbian  Hotel,  Mulberry  Street,  or 
at  the  office  of  this  paper,  will  be  thankfully  received. 

P.  S.  Printers  of  newspapers  would  be  aiding  the  cause  of 
humanity  in  giving  an  insertion  to  the  above. 

Such  notices  were  then  not  infrequent.  An  authentic 
account  has  been  preserved  of  how,  some  years  later,  the 
Evening  Post  saved  the  life  of  a  Vermonter  named 
Stephen  Bourne  by  publishing  an  appeal  for  information 
regarding  the  whereabouts  of  an  eccentric  fellow  named 
Colvin,  who  had  disappeared  and  of  whose  murder 
Bourne  had  just  been  convicted  upon  circumstantial  evi- 
dence. This  appeal  was  read  aloud  in  one  of  the  New 
York  hotels.  It  occurred  to  one  of  the  guests  that  his 
brother-in-law  in  New  Jersey  had  a  hired  man  whose  de- 


LITERATURE  AND  DRAMA  99 

scrlption  answered  to  that  given  of  Colvin;  identification 
followed;  and  Bourne  was  released  to  fire  a  cannon  at  a 
general  celebration  of  his  deliverance.  The  news  of 
Knickerbocker's  disappearance  caused  much  concern,  and 
a  city  officer  took  under  advisement  the  propriety  of 
offering  a  reward. 

Within  a  fortnight  a  letter  was  published  in  the  Eve- 
ning Post  which  described  the  appearance  of  Knicker- 
bocker trudging  wearledly  north  from  Kingsbridge.  Two 
days  later  appeared  in  the  Post  an  announcement  by  Seth 
Handaside,  proprietor  of  the  Columbian  Hotel,  that  "a 
very  curious  kind  of  a  written  book"  had  been  found  in 
the  room  of  Mr.  Diedrich  Knickerbocker,  and  that  if  he 
did  not  return  to  pay  his  bill,  it  would  be  disposed  of  to 
satisfy  the  charges.  A  preliminary  advertisement  of  the 
two  volumes  of  the  Knickerbocker  "History"  was  printed 
in  the  Evening  Post  of  Nov.  28,  by  Innskeep  and  Brad- 
ford, with  the  price — $3. 

Because  the  Evening  Post  circulated  among  the  most 
intelligent  people  of  the  city,  and  because  it  had  never 
forgotten  that  one  object  stated  in  its  prospectus  was 
"to  cultivate  a  taste  for  sound  literature,"  it  was  chosen 
by  Drake  and  Halleck  as  the  medium  for  the  most  famous 
series  of  satirical  poems,  the  "Biglow  Papers"  excepted, 
in  American  literature. 

Year  in  and  year  out,  the  Evening  Post  kept  a  space 
at  the  head  of  its  news  columns  open  for  the  best  verse  it 
could  obtain.  Just  a  month  after  it  was  established  it 
plumed  itself  upon  the  publication  of  an  original  poem 
by  the  coarse  but  lively  English  satirist,  "Peter  Pindar" 
(Dr.  John  Wolcot),  with  whom  Coleman  corresponded. 
Wolcot  is  best  remembered  for  verses  ridiculing  George 
III,  and  for  his  witticism  that  though  George  was  a  good 
subject  for  him,  he  was  a  poor  subject  to  George.  His 
contribution  for  Coleman,  however,  was  not  satiric,  but 
a  jejune  three-stanza  "Ode  to  the  Lark."  In  1803  the 
editor  obtained  a  poem  from  the  banker-poet  Samuel 
Rogers,  then  regarded  as  a  luminary  of  the  first  magni- 
tude.    A  year  later  he  had  the  distinction  of  receiving 


100  THE  EVENING  POST 

from  the  august  hand  of  Thomas  Moore  himself,  who 
was  on  a  tour  through  America,  a  manuscript  poem,  which 
was  published  In  the  Evening  Post  of  July  9  without  a 
title,  and  may  be  found  In  Moore's  works  under  the  head- 
ing, "Lines  Written  on  Leaving  Philadelphia."  Unfor- 
tunately, Coleman  had  to  accompany  the  publication  with 
an  apology;  for  though  Moore  had  requested  that  the 
verses,  which  express  his  gratitude  for  his  reception  in 
Philadelphia,  be  withheld  until  Joseph  Dennle  could  print 
them  In  his  Portfolio  there,  Coleman  had  indiscreetly  lent 
a  copy  to  friends,  and  they  had  become  such  public  prop- 
erty that  there  was  no  reason  for  keeping  them  longer 
out  of  the  Post. 

Much  verse  was  also  clipped  from  English  periodicals 
and  new  English  books,  and  it  Is  creditable  to  Coleman's 
taste  that  Wolfe's  "Burial  of  Sir  John  Moore"  and 
Byron's  stanzas  on  Waterloo  were  reprinted  immediately 
after  their  first  publication.  He  received  vast  quantities 
of  indifferent  American  verse,  signed  with  assumed  names 
— "Mercutio,"  "Sedley,"  "Puck,"  and  "Paridel"— to- 
gether with  some  respectable  nature  poetry  by  "Mat- 
thew Bramble."  In  1820-21  there  were  contributions 
from  John  Pierpont,  the  author  of  "Airs  of  Palestine," 
and  Samuel  Woodworth  and  George  P.  Morris,  two 
minor  Knickerbockers  whose  names  are  kept  alive  by 
"The  Old  Oaken  Bucket"  and  "Woodman,  Spare  That 
Tree."  We  may  be  sure  that  keen  young  men  like  Hal- 
leck  and  Drake  kept  their  eyes  upon  this  poetical  corner 
of  the  Evening  Post,  and  Indeed,  Halleck  apeared  in  it 
as  early  as  the  fall  of  18 18.  He  had  come  to  town  seven 
years  previous,  had  taken  a  place  in  the  counting  room 
of  Jacob  Barker,  a  leading  banker  and  merchant,  had 
become  intimate  with  Drake  and  attended  his  wedding, 
and  had  written  many  and  published  one  or  two  songs. 
He  frequently  revisited  his  boyhood  home  at  Guilford, 
Conn.,  and  during  a  passage  up  the  Sound  one  fine  autumn 
evening  he  mentally  composed  the  stanzas  entitled  "Twi- 
light." Immediately  upon  his  return  to  New  York  he 
sent  the  verses  anonymously  to  the  Evening  Post;  and 


LITERATURE  AND  DRAMA  loi 

though  Coleman  was  exceedingly  fastidious  in  his  literary 
tastes,  he  gave  the  lines  to  the  printer  after  a  single  read- 
ing. This  was  one  of  the  first  two  poems  which  Halleck 
placed  in  his  collected  writings. 

On  a  crisp  March  evening  the  next  year  readers  who 
opened  the  Evening  Post  at  their  tea-table  saw  in  a  promi- 
nent position  among  the  few  news  items  the  following 
acknowledgement : 

Lines  addressed  to  "Ennui"  by  "Croaker"  are  received,  and 
shall  have  a  place  tomorrow.  They  are  the  production  of  genius 
and  taste.  A  personal  acquaintance  with  the  author  would  be 
gratifying  to  the  editor. 

The  next  day,  March  lo,  the  position  of  honor  was 
given  up  to  the  poem.  "We  have  received  two  more  po- 
etic crackers  of  merit  from  our  unknown  correspondent, 
*Croaker,'  "  wrote  Coleman,  "which  shall  appear,  all  in 
good  time.  But  we  must  husband  them.  His  promise  to 
furnish  us  with  a  few  more  similar  trifles,  though  he  tells 
us  we  must  expect  an  occasional  touch  at  ourselves  or 
party,  is  received  with  a  welcome  and  a  smile."  And 
on  March  ii,  Croaker's  lines,  "On  Presenting  the  Free- 
dom of  the  City  to  a  Great  General" — Jackson  had  just 
received  that  honor — were  accompanied  with  another 
appeal: 

Is  it  not  possible  that  we  can  have  a  personal  and  confidential 
interview  with  our  friend  "Croaker,"  at  some  time  and  place  he 
will  name?  If  he  declines,  will  he  inform  me  how  he  may  be 
addressed  by  letter?  In  the  meantime,  whatever  may  happen 
(he,  at  least,  will,  before  long,  understand  me),  I  expect  from 
him  discretion. 

Succeeding  issues  showed  that  the  connection  between 
Croaker  and  the  Evening  Post  had  become  fixed  and  that 
the  city  was  in  for  whole  series  of  skits  on  men,  manners, 
and  events.  On  March  12  was  printed  the  poem  called 
"The  Secret  Mine  Sprung  at  a  Late  Supper,"  dealing 
with  a  recent  political  episode;  next  day  it  was  followed 
by  verses,  "To  Mr.  Potter,  the  Ventriloquist,"  then  a 


102  THE  EVENING  POST 

popular  performer;  on  the  15th  there  appeared  "To  Mr. 
Simpson,"  addressed  to  the  manager  of  the  city's  chief 
theater;  and  on  the  i6th  two  poems  were  printed  at  once. 

Most  of  the  Knickerbocker  art  was  imitative,  and  the 
Croaker  poems  were  In  a  vein  which  had  been  much  ex- 
ploited In  England.  "Peter  Pindar,"  George  Colman 
the  younger,  whose  humorous  poems  entitled  "Broad 
Grins"  had  run  through  edition  after  edition,  Tom 
Moore,  and  those  kings  of  parody,  Horatio  and  James 
Smith,  were  the  models  whom  Croaker  and  Co.  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously  followed.  The  moment  was  a 
happy  one  for  such  bold  and  witty  thrusts.  Had  they 
appeared  when  party  feeling  was  running  high  before  or 
during  the  war,  they  would  have  given  mortal  offense; 
but  the  tolerance  accompanying  the  political  era  of  good 
feeling  robbed  them  of  any  sting.  From  Coleman's  ef- 
forts to  arrange  an  Interview  with  the  authors,  we  may 
surmise  that  he  feared  some  other  editor  would  share  the 
prize,  and  that  he  had  suggestions  for  further  squibs.  His 
literary  discernment  was  never  better  evinced  than  by  his 
enthusiastic  reception  of  the  first  Croaker  contribution. 
A  dull  editor  would  have  passed  over  the  lines  to  ennui — 
which  were  only  a  facile  expression  of  weariness  with 
the  new  books  by  Lady  Morgan  and  Mordecal  M.  Noah, 
the  Edinburgh  Review,  Gen.  Jackson's  reception,  Clin- 
ton's political  prospects,  and  the  Erie  Canal  plans — with- 
out perceiving  their  unusual  qualities;  a  careless  editor 
would  have  printed  them  without  asking  for  more.  Cole- 
man saw  the  possibility  of  indefinitely  extending  the 
satires. 

The  origin  of  the  poems  had  been  purely  casual.  Hal- 
leck  and  Drake,  the  former  now  a  prosperous  and 
trusted  aid  of  old  Jacob  Barker's,  the  latter  a  full-fledged 
physician  recently  returned  from  Europe,  happened  in 
their  romantic  attachment  to  spend  a  leisurely  Sunday 
morning  with  a  mutual  acquaintance.  As  a  diversion, 
Drake  wrote  several  stanzas  upon  ennui,  and  Halleck 
capped  them.  They  decided  to  send  them  to  Coleman, 
and,  if  he  would  not  publish  them,  to  Mordecal  N.  Noah, 


William  Coleman 
Editor-in-Chief  1801-1829. 


LITERATURE  AND  DRAMA  103 

the  Jewish  journalist  who  had  recently  become  editor  of 
the  Democratic  National  Advocate.  Drake,  returning 
to  his  home,  also  sent  Coleman  the  two  additional  "crack- 
ers" which  he  acknowledged.  The  name  "Croaker"  then 
carried  as  distinct  a  meaning  as  would  Dick  Deadeye  or 
Sherlock  Holmes  to-day,  being  that  of  the  confirmed  old 
grumbler  In  Goldsmith's  "Good-Natured  Man."  Cole- 
man's request  for  a  meeting  was  granted  by  the  poets, 
who,  as  Halleck  told  his  biographer,  James  Grant  Wil- 
son, one  evening  knocked  at  the  editor's  door  on  Hudson 
Street: 

They  were  ushered  into  the  parlor,  the  editor  soon  entered,  the 
young  poets  expressed  a  desire  for  a  few  minutes'  strictly  private 
conversation  with  him,  and  the  door  being  closed  and  locked,  Dr. 
Drake  said — "I  am  Croaker,  and  this  gentleman,  sir,  is  Croaker, 
Jr."  Coleman  stared  at  the  young  men  with  indescribable  and 
unaffected  astonishment, — at  length  exclaiming:  "My  God,  I 
had  no  idea  that  we  had  such  talents  in  America!"  Halleck,  with 
his  characteristic  modesty,  was  disposed  to  give  Drake  all  the 
credit;  but  as  it  chanced  that  Coleman  alluded  in  particularly 
glowing  terms  to  one  of  the  Croakers  that  was  wholly  his,  he  was 
forced  to  be  silent,  and  the  delighted  editor  continued  in  a  strain 
of  compliment  and  eulogy  that  put  them  both  to  the  blush.  Before 
taking  their  leave,  the  poets  bound  Coleman  over  to  the  most 
profound  secrecy,  and  arranged  a  plan  of  sending  him  the  MS., 
and  of  receiving  the  proofs,  in  a  manner  that  would  avoid  the 
least  possibility  of  the  secret  of  their  connection  with  the  Evening 
Post  being  discovered.  The  poems  were  copied  from  the  originals 
by  LangstafF  [an  apothecary  friend],  that  their  handwriting 
should  not  divulge  the  secret,  and  were  either  sent  through  the 
mails,  or  taken  to  the  Evening  Post  office  by  Benjamin  R. 
Winthrop. 

The  poems  now  followed  in  quick  succession.  On 
March  17  there  was  a  sly  skit  upon  the  surgeon-general, 
Samuel  Mitchill,  the  best-known — and  most  self-impor- 
tant— physician  and  scientist  In  the  city,  and  a  man  noted 
in  the  history  of  Columbia  College;  the  next  day  an  ad- 
dress to  John  Minshull,  a  prominent  merchant;  on  March 
19  a  poem  of  general  theme,  "The  Man  Who  Frets";  on 


104  THE  EVENING  POST 

March  20  and  25,  verses  upon  Manager  Simpson  of  the 
Park  Theater  again;  and  on  March  23  lines  "To  John 
Lang,  Esq.,"  the  sturdy  old  editor  of  the  Gazette.     An 
apostrophe  "To  Domestic  Peace"  and  "A  Lament  for 
Great  Ones  Departed"  also  appeared  in  March,  as  did 
two  complimentary  epistles  in  verse  to  the  authors,  se- 
lected by  Coleman  from  "the  multitude  of  imitators  that 
the  popularity  of  Croaker  has  produced."     One  writer 
spoke  of  Croaker  and  Co.  as  "the  wits  of  the  day  and 
the  pride  of  the  age,"  while  the  other  credited  them  with 
making  "all  Gotham  at  thy  dashes  stare."     There  was 
a  pause  early  in  April  while  Drake  was  out  of  town, 
and  Coleman  confessed  that  "on  account  of  the  public, 
we  begin  to  be  a  little  impatient."     But  the  series  re- 
commenced on  April  8,  and  by  May  i,  when  a  poem  to 
William  Cobbett,   the  eminent  English  journalist,   then 
sojourning  on  Long  Island,  appeared,  twenty-one  had  been 
printed.     One  Croaker  contribution  had  meanwhile  come 
out  in  Noah's  National  Advocate.    After  another  pause, 
on  May  29  the  Evening  Post  published  the  gem  of  the 
whole  collection,  Drake's  "The  American  Flag,"  with  the 
final  quatrain  written  by  Halleck.     Coleman  prefaced  this 
famous  patriotic  lyric  with  the  remark  that  it  was  one 
of  those  poems  which,  as  Sir  Philip  Sidney  said  of  the 
old  ballad  of  Chevy  Chase,  stir  the  heart  like  a  trumpet. 
It  might  more  truly  be  said  that,  with  its  blare  of  sound 
and  pomp  of  imagery,  it  stirs  the  hearer  like  a  full  brass 
band.     Probably  not  even  Coleman  realized  how  many 
generations  of  schoolboys  would  declaim : 

When  freedom  from  her  mountain  height, 
Unfurled  her  standard  to  the  air, 
She  tore  the  azure  robe  of  night, 
And  set  the  stars  of  glory  there! 

The  success  of  the  "Salmagundi  Papers"  did  not  com- 
pare in  immediacy  or  extent  with  that  of  the  Croaker 
poems.  Copies  of  the  Evening  Post,  which  now  had  2,000 
subscribers,  passed  from  hand  to  hand.  In  homes,  book- 
Stores,  coffee-houses,  taverns,  and  on  the  street  corners 


LITERATURE  AND  DRAMA  105 

every  one,  as  Halleck  wrote  his  sister  on  April  i,  was 
soon  discussing  the  skits.  "We  have  had  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  and  of  hearing  ourselves  praised,  puffed,  eulogized, 
execrated,  and  threatened  as  much  as  any  writers  since 
the  days  of  Junius,"  he  informed  her.  "The  whole  town 
has  talked  of  nothing  else  for  three  weeks  past,  and  every 
newspaper  has  done  us  the  honor  to  mention  us  in  some 
way,  either  of  praise  or  censure,  but  all  united  in  owning 
our  talents  and  genius."  The  two  young  men,  unused  to 
seeing  themselves  in  print,  were  tremendously  elated. 
Once  upon  receiving  a  proof  of  some  stanzas  from  the 
Evening  Post,  Drake  laid  his  cheek  down  upon  the  lines 
and,  with  beaming  eyes,  exclaimed  to  his  fellow-poet: 
"O,  Halleck,  isn't  this  happiness !"  Most  of  the  Croaker 
series,  which  was  virtually  concluded  in  June,  though  two 
poems  now  generally  bracketed  with  them  appeared  in 
1 82 1,  were  too  much  the  product  of  joint  labor  to  be 
assigned  to  one  writer  or  the  other;  the  theme  suggested 
itself,  and  both  would  elaborate  it. 

The  newspapers  received  dozens  of  replies  or  imita- 
tions, Coleman  once  showing  Halleck  a  sheaf  of  fifteen 
that  had  come  in  during  a  single  morning.  In  spite  of 
their  local  subjects,  many  of  the  poems  were  reprinted  all 
over  the  North,  and  as  far  south  as  Washington.  Wood- 
worth,  who  himself  wrote  not  a  little  on  New  York 
affairs,  successfully  begged  a  contribution  from  Halleck 
for  his  magazine.  It  may  be  mentioned  that  Coleman 
took  some  liberties  with  the  series.  To  one  he  prefixed 
a  humorous  letter,  in  another  he  inserted  a  couplet,  and 
in  a  third  he  altered  the  overworked  name  Chloe  to 
Julia. 

To  modern  readers  the  allusions  to  persons  and  events 
have  lost  their  wit,  and  the  historical  interest  they  have 
gained  is  only  partial  compensation.  We  find  little  humor 
in  the  contretemps  which  occurred  when  Gen.  Jackson, 
entertained  by  the  city  leaders,  and  already  a  Presidential 
possibility,  threw  the  dinner  into  confusion  by  toasting  De 
Witt  Clinton,  who  as  a  former  Federalist  was  heartily 
hated  by  many  New  York   Democrats.      Hence   those 


io6  THE  EVENING  POST 

numbers  seem  the  freshest  which  are  most  general  in 
theme.  The  "Ode  to  Fortune"  is  better  than  the  lines 
"To  Simon,"  who  was  caterer  at  fashionable  balls  and 
weddings.  "The  Man  Who  Frets"  is  more  interesting 
than  "To  Capt.  Seaman  Weeks,"  who  was  leading  an  in- 
dependent political  movement  against  Tammany.  Only 
here  and  there  are  jests  that  we  still  appreciate,  as  the 
advice  to  the  theatrical  manager  to  discharge  his  come- 
dians and  hire  the  side-splitting  legislators  at  Albany, 
and  satire  still  comprehensible,  as  the  verses  upon  Trum- 
bull's florid  Revolutionary  paintings,  which  now  hang  in 
the  national  Capitol: 

Go  on,  great  painter!  dare  be  dull — 
No  longer  after  Nature  dangle; 
Call  rectilinear  beautiful  ; 
Find  grace  and  freedom  in  an  angle; 
Pour  on  the  red,  the  green,  the  yellow, 
"Paint  till  a  horse  may  mire  upon  it," 
And  while  I've  strength  to  write  or  bellow, 
I'll  sound  your  praises  in  a  sonnet. 

But  the  skits  are  almost  a  catalogue  of  the  worthies  of 
the  town.  The  prominent  merchants  were  represented 
by  such  names  as  Henry  Cruger,  Nathaniel  Prime,  John 
K.  Beekman,  and  John  Jacob  Astor.  The  politicians — 
Henry  Meigs,  who  voted  for  admitting  Missouri,  Clinton, 
Morgan  Lewis,  Rufus  King,  and  others — -had  more  atten- 
tion than  any  other  group.  Croaker  had  much  fun  at  the 
expense  of  the  chief  hotel-keepers:  Abraham  Martling, 
owner  of  the  Tammany  Hall  Hotel,  and  a  political  figure 
of  importance,  William  Niblo,  whose  restaurant  at  Wil- 
liam and  Pine  Streets  was  popular,  and  Cato  Alexander, 
to  whose  tavern  on  the  postroad  four  miles  out  all  the 
young  bucks  made  summer  excursions.  The  stage  folk 
received  generous  space,  among  them  James  W.  Wallack 
and  Miss  Catherine  Lesugg,  later  Mrs.  James  Hackett, 
whose  family  names  were  to  figure  so  prominently  in 
American  theatrical  history.  Fifty  years  later  James 
Hackett  himself  contributed  to   the  Evening  Post  an 


LITERATURE  AND  DRAMA  107 

interesting  chapter  of  reminiscences  of  Halleck,  recalling 
how  they  had  first  become  friends  when  they  were  both 
admirers  of  the  blooming  Miss  Lesugg,  then  fresh  from 
England,  and  how  they  maintained  the  friendship  till 
Halleck's  death.  Even  the  editors — Coleman,  Lang, 
Woodworth,  "whose  Chronicle  died  broken-hearted,"  and 
Spooner  of  Brooklyn — were  not  spared  by  Croaker. 

Newspapers,  however,  usually  establish  a  literary  rep- 
utation not  by  original  poetry,  but  by  literary  criticism, 
and  we  may  well  stop  to  examine  the  Evening  Post^s  rec- 
ord in  this  field.  It  was  slightly  handicapped  by  the  fact 
that  between  1801  and  the  appearance  of  "The  Spy"  in 
1 82 1  there  was  virtually  nothing  worth  criticizing. 
Charles  Brockden  Brown  had  finished  his  career  as  a 
novelist  before  the  Evening  Post  was  fairly  launched. 
Irving  was  silent  after  his  publication  of  the  Knicker- 
bocker "History"  until  the  first  part  of  "The  Sketch- 
Book"  appeared  in  18 19.  In  verse  almost  nothing  but 
that  marvelous  piece  of  boyish  inspiration,  "Thanatop- 
sis,"  is  now  remembreed.  Patriotic  Americans  of  the  day, 
like  Coleman,  made  a  painful  effort  to  believe  that  Alls- 
ton's  "Sylphs  of  the  Seasons,"  Paine's  "Juvenile  Poems," 
Mrs.  Sigourney's  "Moral  Pieces,"  and  Pierpont's  "Airs 
of  Palestine"  were  very  nearly  as  good  as  the  literature 
coming  from  the  pens  of  Byron,  Coleridge,  Scott,  Words- 
worth, Keats,  and  Shelley;  but  the  pretense  was  a  ghastly 
mockery. 

Most  of  the  early  book  notices  in  the  Evening  Post 
were  of  two  useful  kinds :  they  were  either  an  examination 
of  political  pamphlets  for  party  ends,  or  a  gutting  of  new 
books  of  travel,  biography,  and  history  for  their  news 
value.  From  the  very  commencement  of  the  journal, 
many  columns  of  matter  were  furnished  by  the  various 
pamphlets  called  forth  by  Vice-President  Burr's  attempted 
suppression  of  John  Wood's  "History  of  the  Administra- 
tion of  John  Adams"  ;  for  this  internecine  warfare  among 
Democrats  delighted  all  Federalists.  In  the  first  days  of 
1803  pamphlets  upon  the  annexation  of  Louisiana  began 
to  demand  selection  and  comment.    Then  came  pamphlets 


io8  THE  EVENING  POST 

upon  the  embargo,  non-intercourse,  impressment,  and  the 
conduct  of  the  British  minister,  Jackson.  The  original 
publication  of  the  very  effective  pamphlet  by  a  "New 
England  Farmer"  upon  "Mr.  Madison's  War"  was  in 
installments  in  the  Evening  Post  during  the  summer  of 
1 8 1 2.  Gouverneur  Morris  inspired  the  newspaper's  care- 
ful attention  to  the  Erie  Canal  question;  one  evidence  of 
its  interest  in  the  subject  was  a  series  of  articles  in  the 
spring  of  1807,  reviewing  the  writings  of  "Agricola" 
upon  it. 

The  books  which  were  gutted  were  sometimes  exceed- 
ingly interesting.  Thus  in  18 16  Coleman  published  copi- 
ous extracts  from  James  Simpson's  "Visit  to  Flanders," 
a  vivid  account  of  Waterloo  and  other  battlefields  as  they 
appeared  the  month  after  Napoleon's  defeat.  In  18 17 
much  was  made  of  Cadwallader  Colden's  "Life  of  Ful- 
ton," and  two  years  later  of  M.  M.  Noah's  entertaining 
"Travels  in  England,  France,  Spain,  and  the  Barbary 
States."  The  extracts  from  O'Meara's  memoirs  of  Na- 
poleon, printed  in  1822,  led  Coleman  into  an  attack  upon 
Napoleon's  jailer  at  St.  Helena,  Sir  Hudson  Lowe;  and 
when  Col.  Wm.  L.  Stone  of  the  Commercial  Advertiser 
came  to  Lowe's  defense,  an  animated  controversy  fol- 
lowed. 

It  was  part  of  Coleman's  editorial  creed  to  beat  the 
big  drum  for  American  letters.  Most  of  the  Knicker- 
bocker writers  were  themselves  really  provincial  in  liter- 
ary matters,  keeping  always  a  nervous  and  envious  eye 
upon  England;  for  it  was  the  period  when,  as  Lowell  puts 
it,  we  thought  Englishmen's  thought,  and  with  English 
salt  on  her  tail  our  wild  eagle  was  caught.  This  pro- 
vincialism frequently  expressed  itself  in  an  insistence  that 
America  was,  not  America,  but  a  bigger  England,  and 
that  the  Hudson  was  not  the  Hudson,  but  a  nobler 
Thames.  Coleman  thought  it  his  duty  to  encourage  native 
literature,  and  the  amount  of  fifth-rate  verse  that  was 
given  patriotic  praise  in  the  Evening  Post  is  dismaying. 

The  ode  of  Robert  Treat  Paine,  jr.,  "Rule  New  Eng- 
land," was  commended  with  a  warmth  that  owed  some- 


LITERATURE  AND  DRAMA  109 

thing  to  Coleman's  intimacy  with  the  elder  Paine.  Per- 
sonal considerations  also  had  their  share  In  the  flattering 
notice  of  Winthrop  Sargent's  "Boston"  the  next  year. 
Coleman  was  one  of  the  few  who  has  ever  closed  Peter 
Quince's  "Parnassian  Shop"  "with  Impressions  favorable 
to  the  young  author."  In  1805  he  was  struck  by  the 
"Democracy  Unveiled"  of  Thomas  Green  Fessenden,  a 
poetaster  who  had  got  some  notice  by  writing  a  success- 
ful book  while  Imprisoned  for  debt  in  Fleet  Street,  Lon- 
don. Francis  Arden  received  favorable  mention  for  a 
translation  of  Ovid,  while  another  very  minor  bard,  Rich- 
ard B.  Davis,  who  before  his  premature  death  had  been 
a  friend  of  Irving  and  Paulding,  was  generously  praised 
In  1807.  The  Post  published  a  review  of  Plerpont's 
"Airs  of  Palestine"  by  Henry  Brevoort,  Irvlng's  bosom 
friend,  and  pronounced  it  indispensable  to  any  American 
library.  It  thought  Halleck's  amusing  satire  on  a  New 
York  merchant  family  In  society,  "Fanny,"  a  better  poem 
than  Byron's  "Beppo,"  whose  verse  It  Imitated.  Byron's 
popularity  at  this  time  was  such  that  when  his  "Mazeppa" 
was  published  in  England,  a  copy  was  hurried  to  Phila- 
delphia by  the  fast  ship  Helen,  was  placed  In  the  printer's 
hands  at  2  p.  m.,  and  twenty-two  hours  later  the  volumes 
were  issuing  from  the  press  complete  and  being  rushed 
to  the  bookstores. 

But  there  were  a  few  books  that  live.  After  Brockden 
Brown's  death  in  18 10,  we  find  repeated  mention  of  him, 
"amiable  and  beloved  by  all  his  acquaintances,"  by  Cole- 
man. "Wieland"  the  editor  thought  worthy  of  his 
powers;  and  he  remarked  of  "Ormond"  that  the  reason 
why  it  was  formal  and  uninteresting  was,  as  he  personally 
knew,  that  It  was  "written  by  stinted  tasks  of  so  many 
pages  a  day,  and  sent  to  the  printer  without  correction  or 
revision,  or  even  reading  over,  till  It  came  back  to  him  in 
proof."  One  of  Coleman's  last  contributions  to  the  Eve- 
ning Post  was  a  short  notice  of  a  new  set  of  Brown.  He 
singled  out  for  remark  the  fact  that  the  novelist  seldom 
troubled  to  give  minute  descriptions  of  sensible  objects. 
"These  he  generally  dispatches  with  a  few  brief  and  bold 


no  THE  EVENING  POST 

touches,  and  bends  his  whole  strength  to  the  speculative 
parts  of  the  work,  to  follow  out  trains  of  reflection  and 
the  analysis  of  feelings."  In  1806  the  Evening  Post  car- 
ried a  half  dozen  articles  upon  Noah  Webster's  new 
octavo  dictionary  of  the  English  language,  condemning  it 
as  to  definitions,  orthography,  and  orthoepy,  and  quarrel- 
ing violently  with  some  of  Webster's  grammatical  and 
etymological  opinions.  The  reviewer  accused  Webster  of 
grossly  misrepresenting  the  views  of  the  English  lexicog- 
rapher Walker.  Webster  replied  in  two  long  and  forcible 
articles,  compelling  the  reviewer  to  admit  some  mistakes. 

Irving's  career  was  closely  followed  by  the  Post.  It 
defended  his  Knickerbocker  "History"  against  the  em- 
battled Dutch  families,  led  by  Gulian  C.  Verplanck,  who 
charged  that  he  had  defamed  them.  When  the  first  part 
of  "The  Sketch  Book"  appeared,  a  prompt  review  was 
contributed  by  "a  literary  friend,"  probably  Brevoort  or 
Paulding.  Warmly  eulogistic,  it  is  still  discriminating.  It 
commended  Irving  for  his  "grace  of  style;  the  rich,  warm 
tone  of  benevolent  feeling;  the  freely-flowing  vein  of 
hearty  and  happy  humor,  and  the  fine-eyed  spirit  of  ob- 
servation, sustained  by  an  enlightened  understanding,  and 
regulated  by  a  perception  or  fitness — a  tact — wonderfully 
quick  and  sure."  It  declared  "Rip  Van  Winkle"  the 
masterpiece  of  the  collection.  "For  that  comic  spirit 
which  is  without  any  infusion  of  gall,  which  delights  in 
what  is  ludicrous  rather  than  what  is  ridiculous  (for  its 
laughter  is  not  mixed  with  contempt),  which  seeks  its 
gratification  in  the  eccentricities  of  a  simple,  unrefined 
state  of  society,  rather  than  in  the  vicious  follies  of  arti- 
ficial life;  for  the  vividness  and  truth,  with  which  Rip's 
character  is  drawn,  and  the  state  of  society  in  the  village 
where  he  lived,  is  depicted;  and  for  the  graceful  ease  with 
which  it  is  told,  the  story  of  Rip  Van  Winkle  has  few 
competitors."  Unfortunately,  Coleman  added  a  footnote 
in  which  he  stated  his  personal  opinion  that  "Rip  Van 
Winkle"  lacked  probability,  and  that  the  poetical  tale  of 
"The  Wife"  was  superior. 

Six  weeks  later  the  second  part  of  "The  Sketch  Book" 


LITERATURE  AND  DRAMA  iii 

was  reviewed  with  equal  taste  by  apparently  the  same 
hand — that  of  some  one  who  knew  how  hard  Irving  was 
hit  by  the  death  of  his  fiancee,  and  his  circumstances 
abroad.  At  the  beginning  of  1823  Coleman  himself 
wrote  two  long  articles  in  praise  of  the  new  "Brace- 
bridge  Hall,"  declaring  that  he  had  undertaken  the 
task  of  rescuing  it  "from  the  rude  and  ill-natured  treat- 
ment of  some  of  our  American  critics";  the  Literary  Re- 
pository and  two  newspapers  of  Philadelphia  and  Balti- 
more having  assailed  it.  One  reason  for  its  ill-natured 
reception,  he  thought,  was  the  high  charge  made  for  the 
American  edition,  and  another  the  kindly  view  it  took  of 
British  life  and  manners.  He  showed  no  little  acquaint- 
ance with  Irving's  personal  affairs,  and  probably  had 
seen  some  of  his  letters  home.  One  epistle,  written  late 
in  1 8 19,  and  telling  of  the  essayist's  acquaintanceships  in 
London,  had  been  copied  out  by  Mrs.  Hoffman,  mother 
of   Irving's    dead    sweetheart,    for    the    Evening   Post, 

Those  were  the  days  in  which  Sydney  Smith's  taunt, 
"Who  reads  an  American  book?"  struck  home.  In  1820 
Coleman  recorded  with  pride  that  the  rage  for  new 
publications  was  so  great  that  "not  a  day  passes  but 
the  press  is  delivered  of  two  or  more";  though  he  re- 
ferred to  magazines  as  well  as  books.  On  Sept.  4,  1823, 
he  boasted  that  such  value  was  becoming  attached  to 
American  literature  in  Great  Britain  that  its  republica- 
tion was  profitable.  A  Scotch  publisher  had  begun  issu- 
ing selections  from  Irving,  Brooks,  Percival,  and  others 
in  a  miscellany  circulated  from  Edinburgh.  "Our  sun 
has  certainly  arisen,  and  one  day,  we  predict,  it  will  beam 
as  bright  as  it  does,  or  ever  did,  in  the  Old  World;  and 
the  Americans  who  may  arise  in  future  ages  will  not  have 
to  blush  on  hearing  their  classics  named  with  the  great- 
est of  antiquity." 

More  space  was  consistently  given  by  the  Evening  Post 
to  reviews  of  plays  than  to  book  notices.  In  fact,  the 
keen  interest  of  New  Yorkers  in  the  theater  had  produced 
very  competent  dramatic  criticism  before  the  newspaper 
was  founded.     William  Dunlap,  the  famous  manager- 


112  THE  EVENING  POST 

playwright  of  the  time,  tells  us  that  in  1796  there  was 
organized  in  the  city  a  little  group  of  critics,  including 
Dr.  Peter  Irving,  Charles  Adams,  son  of  John  Adams, 
Samuel  Jones,  William  Cutting,  and  John  Wells,  the  law- 
partner  of  Coleman.  They  would  take  turns  writing  a 
criticism  of  the  evening's  play,  and  meet  next  day  to  dis- 
cuss and  revise  it  before  handing  it  to  one  of  the  news- 
papers. Their  meetings  had  ended  before  1801,  but 
after  the  Evening  Post  began  publication  several  of  the 
group,  and  especially  Wells,  wrote  much  for  the  new 
journal. 

The  theater  was  the  more  prominent  in  Old  New  York 
because  the  variety  of  public  entertainments  in  and  just 
after  1803  was  small.  Those  with  a  literary  turn  of 
mind  might  drop  in  at  the  Shakespeare  Gallery  on  Park 
Street,  which  afforded  a  "belles  lettres  lounge" — that  is, 
a  table  laden  with  newspapers  and  magazines  of  the  day, 
and  soft  seats  in  a  well-lighted  room,  for  $1.50  a  year. 
Those  with  scientific  tastes  could  go  to  the  Museum  on 
Broadway,  with  its  curiosities  ranging  from  mastodon 
bones  to  a  representation  of  Gen.  Butler  being  toma- 
hawked by  the  Osages,  and  another  of  Mrs.  Rawllngs  and 
her  six  infants  at  a  birth.  There  was  a  thin  stream  of 
entertainers — magicians,  who  were  approved  because 
their  illusions  taught  the  young  to  beware  of  wily  rogues; 
ventriloquists,  balloonists,  rare  at  first  and  objects  of 
supreme  Interest,  exhibitors  of  lions  and  tapirs,  and  novel- 
ties like  the  Eskimo  whom  a  sea  captain  brought  to  town 
and  who  gave  aquatic  exhibitions  on  the  Hudson.  In 
summer  the  public  had  several  open-air  amusement  places. 
One  named  Vauxhall  was  situated  near  the  top  of  the 
Bowery,  offering  music,  fireworks,  and  refreshments.  An- 
other was  the  Columbian  Gardens,  and  the  most  ambitious 
was  the  Mt.  Vernon  Gardens.  In  winter,  one  of  the  chief 
fashionable  events  was  the  annual  concert  of  the  Philhar- 
monic Society,  held  impressively  at  Tontine  Hall  on 
Broadway,  and  consisting  half  of  instrumental  music,  half 
of  vocal  solos  from  now  forgotten  operas  like  the  "Siege 
of    Belgrade."      About   New   Year's   began    the    select 


LITERATURE  AND  DRAMA  113 

dances  of  the  City  Assembly,  in  the  assembly  rooms  in 
William  Street.  Here  young  ladies  made  their  debut, 
the  finest  gowns  were  exhibited,  and  the  bucks  showed  a 
skill  acquired  at  the  dancing  school  of  M.  Lalliet. 

This  list  of  amusements  comes  near  being  exhaustive, 
and  the  Park  Theater  was  always  the  center  of  attrac- 
tion. The  building,  fronting  on  Park  Row,  had  been 
completed  in  1798  at  a  cost  placed  by  the  Evening  Post 
— no  doubt  an  overestimate — at  $130,500.  The  charge 
was  $1  for  box  seats,  of  which  there  were  at  first  three 
full  circle  tiers,  and  after  1807  four;  75  cents  to  the  pit, 
and  50  cents  to  the  gallery.  Early  in  the  century  per- 
formances began  at  6:30,  and  at  9:30;  the  first  play  was 
usually  followed  by  a  farcical  after-piece.  Washington 
Irving  as  a  lad  used  to  pretend  to  go  to  bed  after  prayers, 
descend  to  the  ground  by  way  of  the  roof  of  a  woodshed, 
and  slip  away  to  see  this  final  performance.  The  Evening 
Post  gives  us  a  good  deal  of  information  about  the  man- 
agement of  the  theater,  which  was  under  Dunlap  until 
1808,  and  then  under  Cooper  and  Price.  In  its  first 
issue  Dunlap  appealed  to  his  patrons  against  the  dan- 
gerous practice  of  "smoaking,"  saying  that  the  use  of 
cigars  was  a  constant  topic  for  ridicule  by  European  trav- 
elers. From  Coleman's  later  comments  we  learn  that 
no  woman  would  for  a  moment  have  thought  of  sitting 
anywhere  but  in  the  boxes,  and  that  no  gentleman  would 
have  shared  the  gallery  with  the  rough  crowd  that  filled 
it.  Even  the  pit,  with  its  dirty,  broken  floor,  its  backless 
benches,  and  its  incursions  of  rats  from  crannies  under 
the  stage,  would  now  be  considered  hardly  tolerable. 
About  the  entrance  there  always  clustered  a  set  of  idle 
boys  and  disorderly  adults  who,  when  spectators  left 
during  an  intermission  or  before  the  after-piece,  set  up 
a  clamor  for  the  return  checks.  Efforts  to  stop  the 
gift  or  sale  of  these  checks  were  in  general  futile.  The 
interior  was  renovated  in  1807,  enlargements  were  made 
to  give  a  total  of  2,372  seats,  patent  lamps  were  installed, 
and  a  room  above  the  lobby  was  fitted  up  as  a  bar  and 


114  THE  EVENING  POST 

restaurant.     Still  further  improvements  were  made  in 
1809. 

The  independent  and  severe  criticisms  of  the  acting 
which  appeared  in  the  Evening  Post,  and  to  a  lesser  extent 
in  Irving's  Morning  Chronicle^  were  not  at  first  relished- 
by  theatrical  folk.  The  names  of  the  actors  and  actresses, 
Cooper,  Fennell,  Hallam,  Turnbull,  Mrs.  Johnson,  and 
so  on  are  now  all  but  forgotten.  In  Boston  in  1802 
dramatic  criticism  was  written  largely  by  performers 
themselves,  who  sat  up  till  an  early  hour  to  insure  proper 
newspaper  notices,  and  in  Charleston  the  same  practice 
had  been  known.  In  all  cities  most  actors  held  that  no 
one  was  really  competent  to  serve  as  a  critic  unless  he  was 
familiar  with  the  performances  at  the  two  great  London 
theaters.  So  irritated  did  the  dramatic  guild  become  that 
in  January,  1802,  there  was  produced  at  the  theater  a 
satire  upon  the  Evening  Post  reviews,  written  by  Fennell 
and  called  "The  Wheel  of  Truth."  It  was  designed  to 
show  one  Littlewit,  a  newspaper  critic,  in  a  ludicrous  and 
foolish  light.  He  was  represented  as  finding  fault  with 
Stuart's  portrait  of  Washington  because  by  the  footrule 
the  head  was  a  half-inch  too  long,  and  with  a  certain  book 
because  for  the  same  price  he  could  buy  one  twice  as 
heavy.  Coleman  answered  this  attack  in  ^vt  columns 
published  in  two  issues,  which  was  five  columns  more  than 
it  deserved.  He,  Wells,  and  Anthony  Bleecker  continued 
reviewing,  and  a  contemporary  writer  records  that  he 
"aimed  to  settle  all  criticism  by  his  individual  verdict." 

Upon  most  of  the  plays  there  was  little  to  say,  for 
they  were  long  familiar  to  readers  and  theater-goers. 
Shakespeare  was  given  year  in  and  year  out,  a  full  dozen 
of  his  dramas.  Others  of  the  Elizabethans,  including 
Ben  Jonson,  Marlowe  ("The  Jew  of  Malta"),  Massin- 
ger,  Middleton,  and  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  were  occa- 
sionally seen.  Otway's  "Venice  Preserved"  was  some- 
thing of  a  favorite.  The  comedies  of  Sheridan,  Gold- 
smith, and  Fielding  had  regular  representations.  George 
Colman's  plays,  especially  "John  Bull,"  were  highly  pop- 
ular, John  Home's  "Douglas"  was  always  sure  of  a  house, 


LITERATURE  AND  DRAMA  115 

and  for  the  first  two  decades  of  the  century  Kotzebue 
was  much  played  and  admired;  while  many  of  Scott's 
novels  and  poems  were  dramatized.  The  Evening  Post 
said  of  the  first  performance  of  "Marmion,"  in  1 8 1 2,  that 
it  "presents  a  chef-d'oeuvre  of  melodramatic  excellence." 
In  William  Dunlap  at  first,  and  later  in  M.  M.  Noah, 
New  York  had  its  own  rather  crude  dramatists.  When 
the  latter's  patriotic  play,  "She  Would  be  a  Soldier;  or, 
The  Plains  of  Chippewa,"  was  presented  in  18 19,  Cole- 
man spoke  of  it  coldly,  suggesting  that  the  plot  had  been 
inspired  by  the  French  tale  of  "Lindor  et  Clara,  ou  la 
Fille  Soldat,"  and  admitting  only  that  "it  is  not  deficient 
in  interest."  But  he  applauded  Noah's  "Siege  of  Tripoli" 
next  year  as  deserving  what  it  met,  "a  greater  degree  of 
success  than  we  ever  recollect  to  have  attended  an  ori- 
ginal piece  on  our  stage."  Its  vivacity,  its  martial  ardor, 
its  declamation,  he  thought  calculated  to  arouse  a  high 
and  manly  patriotism.  Nearly  the  whole  of  the  criticisms, 
however,  had  to  be  given  up  not  to  plays,  but  to  perform- 
ers and  interpretations  of  parts. 

It  was  only  toward  the  end  of  Coleman's  long  editor- 
ship that  the  first  brilliant  chapter  in  the  history  of  the 
New  York  stage  began.  The  actor  of  greatest  note  be- 
fore the  War  of  18 12  was  George  Frederick  Cooke,  who 
was  warmly  applauded  by  the  Evening  Post  in  a  run  which 
began  at  the  Park  Theater  in  November,  18 10,  and  who 
lies  buried  in  St.  Paul's  churchyard.  It  is  interesting  to 
note  that  during  the  war  English  stage-folk,  for  most 
of  the  actors  and  actresses  of  the  day  were  English, 
continued  to  play  before  admiring  audiences.  An  engage- 
ment which  the  manager  had  made  with  Philip  Kemble 
was  suspended;  but  the  Evening  Post  announced  in 
August,  18 12,  when  fighting  was  general,  that  the  well- 
known  London  actor  Holman  and  his  daughter  had  just 
sailed,  and  they  had  a  successful  New  York  engagement 
that  autumn.  The  Evening  Post  in  18 19  greatly  admired 
the  English  singer  and  actor  Phillipps,  and  Coleman's 
praise  helped  to  bring  him  $9,900  gross  in  six  benefit 
nights.     It  had  a  warm  word  for  Catherine  Lesugg  and 


ii6  THE  EVENING  POST 

for  James  W.  Wallack,  when  they  made  their  New  York 
debut  in  September,  1818.  But  the  first  great  dramatic 
event  at  the  Park  Theater  was  the  initial  American  ap- 
pearance, on  Nov.  29,  1820,  of  Edmund  Kean  in  "Richard 
III." 

Kean  was  in  his  early  thirties,  and  for  a  half  dozen 
years,  since  his  first  triumphant  season  at  Drury  Lane 
in  1 8 14,  New  York  had  been  hearing  of  his  magnificent 
powers.  Coleman  went  to  the  theater  that  autumn  night 
suspicious  that  most  of  his  reputation  had  been  acquired 
by  stage  trickery  and  appeals  to  the  groundlings.  He 
saw  a  man  below  the  middle  stature,  and  heard  a  voice 
thin  and  grating  in  its  upper  tones.  "But,"  admitted  the 
editor,  "he  had  not  finished  his  soliloquy  before  our  preju- 
dices gave  way,  and  we  saw  the  most  complete  actor,  in 
our  judgment,  that  ever  appeared  on  our  boards."  The 
eyes  were  wonderfully  expressive  and  commanding,  and 
in  its  lower  register  the  voice,  said  Coleman,  "strikes 
with  electric  force  upon  the  nerves,  and  at  times  chills 
the  very  blood."  He  declared,  in  an  enthusiasm  which 
recalls  Coleridge's  remark  that  seeing  Kean  play  was 
like  reading  Shakespeare  by  lightning  flashes: 

We  had  been  induced  to  suppose  that  it  was  only  in  the  more 
important  scenes  that  we  should  see  Kean's  superiority,  and  that 
the  lighter  passages  would,  in  theatrical  phrase,  be  walked  over. 
Far  otherwise;  he  gave  to  what  has  heretofore  seemed  the  most 
trivial,  an  interest  and  effect  never  by  us  imagined.  The  most 
striking  point  he  made  in  the  whole  play  (for  we  cannot  notice 
the  many  minor  beauties  he  exhibited)  was  his  manner  of  waking 
and  starting  from  his  couch,  with  the  cry  of  "Give  me  a  horse — 
bind  up  my  wounds!  Have  mercy,  heaven!  Ha,  soft,  'twas  but 
a  dream."  .  .  .  This,  with  all  that  followed,  was  so  admirable; 
bespeaking  a  soul,  so  harrowed  up  by  remorse,  so  loaded  with  his 
guilt,  as  gave  such  an  awful  and  impressive  lesson  to  youth,  that 
no  one  who  witnessed  it  can  ever  forget  it. 

When  Kean  played  in  "The  Merchant  of  Venice,"  ac- 
cording to  the  Evening  Post,  the  audience  hung  so  breath- 
less upon  him  that  "when  it  was  almost  impossible  to 


LITERATURE  AND  DRAMA  117 

restrain  loud  bursts  of  delight,  a  kind  of  general  'hush  I' 
was  whispered  from  every  part."  Many  thought  that  his 
best  role  was  Sir  Giles  Overreach,  and  an  anonymous 
critic  In  the  Evening  Post  said  so.  Coleman  wrote  that 
the  effect  he  produced  as  King  Lear  was  Indescribable: 

Strong  emotions  even  to  tears  were  excited  in  ail  parts  of  the 
house ;  nor  were  they  confined  to  the  female  part  of  the  audience. 
It  could  not  be  otherwise.  Who  could  remain  callous  to  the 
appearance  of  a  feeble  old  monarch,  upwards  of  fourscore  years, 
staggering  under  decrepitude  and  overwhelmed  with  misfortunes, 
attended  with  aberration  of  mind  which  ends  in  downright  mad- 
ness? Such  a  representation  was  given  with  perfect  fidelity  by 
Mr.  Kean.  His  plaintive  tones  were  heard  from  the  bottom  of 
a  broken  heart,  and  completed  the  picture  of  human  woe.  Nature, 
writhing  under  the  poignancy  of  her  feeling,  and  finding  no  ut- 
terance in  words  or  tears,  found  a  vent  at  length  for  her  inde- 
scribable sensations  in  a  spontaneous,  idiotic  laugh.  The  impres- 
sion made  upon  all  who  were  present,  will  never  be  forgotten. 
His  dreadful  imprecations  upon  his  daughters,  his  solemn  appeals 
to  heaven,  struck  the  soul  with  awe. 

On  the  final  night,  Dec.  28,  according  to  the  report  in 
the  Evening  Post,  the  theater  rang  with  unprecedented 
plaudits,  and  at  the  close  the  audience  rose  by  common 
Impulse  and  cheered  Kean  three  times  three. 

But  when  Kean  returned  to  New  York  in  1825  he  was 
greeted  with  a  storm  of  mixed  applause  and  anger — his 
first  night  was  the  night  of  the  famous  "Kean  Riot."  In 
1 82 1  he  had  accepted  a  summer  engagement  in  Boston, 
and  on  the  third  night,  finding  the  theater  almost  empty 
because  of  the  heat,  refused  to  go  on  with  the  play, 
thereby  giving  great  offense.  Moreover,  after  his  return 
to  England,  reports  of  his  flagrant  Immorality  reached 
America.  When  the  Commercial  Advertiser  heard  of  his 
second  tour.  It  denounced  him  as  a  shameless  "scoundrel" 
and  "libertine."  Coleman,  however,  was  eager  to  defend 
him.  The  Park  Theater  opened  on  Kean's  first  night, 
Nov.  14,  at  5  130,  and  It  was  at  once  filled  with  a  crowd 
of  more  than  2,000.  Seven-eighths,  according  to  the  Eve- 
ning Post,  were  eager  to  hear  Kean,  but  about  one  hun- 


ii8  THE  EVENING  POST 

dred,  many  of  them  Bostonlans,  made  up  an  organized 
opposition.  The  moment  the  actor  stepped  forward,  the 
groans,  hisses,  and  shouts  of  "Off  KeanI"  mingled  with 
the  clapping  and  the  cheers  of  his  friends,  were  deafening. 
The  play  proceeded  amid  a  continued  uproar.  Some 
few  scenes  In  the  fourth  and  fifth  acts  were  heard,  but 
the  others.  Including  all  in  which  Kean  appeared,  were 
given  in  dumb  show.  The  actor  tried  repeatedly  to 
address  the  audience,  but  In  vain.  At  one  point  he  was 
struck  In  the  chest  by  an  orange.  One  interrupter  was 
put  out  by  the  Infuriated  audience,  and  fights  occurred  in 
various  parts  of  the  pit,  with  damage  to  benches  and 
furniture. 

It  would  be  pleasant  to  say  that  the  Evening  Post 
roundly  denounced  this  disgraceful  scene,  but  It  rebuked 
It  only  mildly.  Fortunately,  the  outrage  was  not  re- 
peated. Kean  Issued  a  mollifying  address,  the  Bostonlans 
went  home,  and  a  reaction  ensued.  As  the  Evening  Post 
records,  every  one  of  his  houses  was  filled  to  overflowing, 
and  when  he  took  his  benefit  night  on  Feb.  25,  1826,  upon 
leaving,  his  receipts  were  $1,800  clear. 

Compared  with  that  of  Kean,  the  debut  of  Junius 
Brutus  Booth,  made  in  "Richard  III"  on  the  night  of 
Oct.  5,  1 82 1,  attracted  little  attention.  He  came  to  the 
city  a  perfect  stranger,  and  slowly  made  his  way.  When 
Edwin  Forrest  appeared  at  the  New  York  Theater,  in 
the  Bowery,  In  the  autumn  of  1826,  the  Evening  Post 
pronounced  this  American-born  actor  as  good  as  any 
but  the  very  foremost  Englishmen — "irresistibly  Impos- 
ing," indeed.  But  the  only  engagement  comparable  with 
Kean^s  was  that  of  Macready,  who  made  his  bow  on 
Oct.  3,  1826,  as  VIrglnius  In  the  well-known  tragedy  of 
that  name  by  Knowles.  He  was  greeted  so  enthusiasti- 
cally that  he  was  disconcerted,  and  many  thought  him  no 
better  than  their  old  favorite.  Cooper.  But  on  the  sec- 
ond night,  when  he  Impersonated  Macbeth,  his  genius  was 
perceived.  Coleman  wrote  that  he  had  never  seen  the 
role  embodied  so  consistently.  "There  was  a  unity  in 
his  conception  of  character,  which  made  the  development 


LITERATURE  AND  DRAMA  119 

of  Macbeth's  feelings  and  prompting  motives  .  .  .  per- 
fectly Intelligible,  from  hfs  first  Interview  with  the  weird 
sisters  to  the  final  overthrow  of  all  his  hopes,  and  his  des- 
perate conflict  with  Macduff." 

The  New  York  which  Macready  visited  in  1826  was 
no  longer  a  city  of  one  playhouse,  though  when  people 
spoke  of  ''the  theatre"  they  still  always  meant  that  on 
Park  Row.  The  people  could  now  support  more  than 
one  star  and  one  company  at  a  time.  Macready  finished 
his  October  engagement  on  the  20th,  and  was  immediately 
followed  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  James  K.  Hackett,  In  the  first 
American  performance  of  "The  Comedy  of  Errors."  At 
the  Chatham  Theater,  Junius  Brutus  Booth  was  playing 
Shakespeare;  on  the  25th  he  gave  "Othello,"  with  James 
Wallack  as  lago.  Mrs.  Gilbert  at  the  New  York  Thea- 
ter, a  brand-new  edifice  in  the  Bowery,  seating  3,000  spec- 
tators, was  presenting  "Much  Ado  About  Nothing." 
She  was  succeeded  the  next  month  by  Forrest  In  a  reper- 
tory of  plays.  The  Evening  Post  that  spring  had  sur- 
prised many  by  stating  that  the  profits  of  the  Chatham 
Theater  the  previous  season  had  been  $23,000,  and  the 
gross  receipts  $75,000.  Of  the  former  sum  "The  Lady 
of  the  Lake"  alone,  a  play  with  musical  numbers  inter- 
spersed, had  yielded  $10,000.  The  newspaper  was  de- 
lighted when  the  Hacketts  received,  on  their  three  bene- 
fit nights  In  "The  Comedy  of  Errors,"  a  total  of  $3,500. 
This  was  actually  $1,100  more  than  the  balloonist, 
Eugene  Robertson,  took  one  afternoon  that  month  when 
he  floated  from  Castle  Garden  to  Elizabeth,  N.  J.,  in 
the  presence  of  a  crowd  estimated  at  more  than  40,000. 

The  day  when  the  Evening  Post  should  have  a  musical 
editor  was  as  far  distant  as  that  when  it  should  give  to 
sports  more  than  a  semi-annual  paragraph  or  two  upon 
the  races.  But  Coleman  enthusiastically  reviewed  the 
first  Italian  opera  offered  in  the  city — a  performance 
of  Rossini's  "Barber  of  Seville"  at  the  New  York  Thea- 
ter on  Nov.  29,  1825.  The  fashion  of  the  town  turned 
out  to  see  this  Italian  troupe,  headed  by  Seiior  Garcia, 
on  every  Tuesday  and  Saturday  during  the  middle  of  the 


I20  THE  EVENING  POST 

winter;  paying  $2  for  box  seats  and  $i  for  the  pit.  "In 
what  language  shall  we  speak  of  an  entertainment  so 
novel  in  this  country?"  asked  the  editor: 

All  have  obtained  a  general  idea  of  the  opera  by  report.  But 
report  can  give  but  a  faint  idea  of  it.  Until  it  is  seen,  it  will 
never  be  believed  that  a  play  can  be  conducted  in  recitative  or 
singing  and  yet  appear  nearly  as  natural  as  the  ordinary  drama. 
We  were  last  night  surprised,  delighted,  enchanted ;  and  such  were 
the  feelings  of  all  who  witnessed  the  performance.  The  repeated 
plaudits  with  which  the  theater  rang  were  unequivocal,  unaffected 
bursts  of  rapture. 

Would  American  taste  approve  of  the  opera?  "We  pre- 
dict," Coleman  ventured,  "that  it  will  never  hereafter 
dispense  with  it." 


M 


CHAPTER  FIVE 

BRYANT  BECOMES  EDITOR  OF  THE  "EVENING  POST 


?» 


In  1829  Richard  H.  Dana,  the  poet  and  father  of  the 
author  of  "Two  Years  Before  the  Mast,"  remarked  that 
"If  Bryant  must  write  in  a  paper  to  get  his  bread,  I  pray 
God  he  may  get  a  bellyful."  Bryant  had  entered  the 
office  of  the  Evening  Post  in  the  summer  of  1826,  half 
by  accident  and  without  any  intention  of  making  journal- 
ism his  profession;  yet  he  was  to  remain  there  fifty-two 
years,  till  the  very  day  he  received  his  death-stroke.  No 
other  great  figure  in  American  literature  save  Dr.  Frank- 
lin has  such  a  record  as  a  publicist.  How  did  it  happen 
that  the  foremost  poet  in  America,  already  known  as  such 
by  "Thanatopsis"  and  "To  a  Waterfowl,"  became  the 
"junior  editor"  of  the  Evening  Post  in  Coleman's  de- 
clining years? 

The  young  poet-lawyer  had  come  to  New  York  city 
from  Great  Barrington,  Mass.,  at  the  beginning  of  1825, 
when  he  was  but  thirty  years  old,  brought  thither  by 
Henry  D.  Sedgwick  and  Gulian  C.  Verplanck,  two  citi- 
zens of  substance  and  influence  who  had  been  struck  by 
the  genius  shown  in  his  first  volume  of  verse.  The  Sedg- 
wicks  were  a  well-known  Berkshire  family.  Catharine 
M.  Sedgwick,  later  modestly  famous  as  a  novelist,  was  the 
first  to  make  Bryant's  acquaintance,  and  had  strongly 
commended  the  struggling  barrister  to  her  older  brother 
Henry,  who  was  a  leader  at  the  New  York  bar.  With 
neither  his  profession  nor  with  life  in  a  small  town  was 
Bryant  contented ;  and  the  applause  which  had  been  given 
to  "Thanatopsis"  in  the  North  American  Review,  to 
"The  Ages"  when  he  read  it  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
Society  at  Harvard,  and  to  his  first  thin  volume  in  1821, 
seemed  to  justify  his  hopes  for  a  metropolitan  literary 
career.    "The  time  is  peculiarly  propitious,"  Henry  Sedg- 

121 


i 


122  T15F  EVENING  POST 

wick  urged  him  from  New  York;  "the  Athenaeum,  just 
Instituted,  Is  exciting  a  sort  of  literary  rage,  and  It  Is  pro- 
posed to  set  up  a  journal  In  connection  with  It."  If  his 
pen  did  not  yield  a  full  living,  he  could  make  an  additional 
sum  by  giving  lessons  to  foreigners  In  the  English  lan- 
guage and  literature.  Bryant  willingly  yielded.  Leaving 
his  wife  and  baby  behind,  he  settled  in  a  boarding  house 
that  spring,  and  became  one  of  the  two  editors  of  the 
monthly  New  York  Review,  the  first  number  of  which 
appeared  in  June,  1825. 

His  arrival  to  reside  In  New  York  had  attracted  gen- 
eral notice.  To  all  discerning  lovers  of  literature  In  the 
city,  and  they  were  many,  his  best  poems  were  well  known. 
Verplanck  had  given  his  first  volume  a  cordial  review  in 
the  New  York  American,  and  when  he  had  made  a  pre- 
liminary visit  to  the  city  In  1824  the  Evening  Post  had 
reprinted  "Thanatopsis"  with  a  warm  word  of  praise. 
At  the  homes  of  Sedgwick  and  Verplanck,  the  former 
a  sort  of  Holland  House  for  New  York,  Bryant  was  at 
once  made  acquainted  with  Fitzgreene  Halleck  and  J.  G. 
Perclval,  with  the  aspiring  young  poets  Hillhouse  and 
Robert  Sands,  with  the  artists  S.  B.  F.  Morse  and  Dunlap, 
with  Chancellor  Kent  and  President  Duer  of  Columbia. 
We  may  be  sure  that  Coleman,  who  was  proud  of  his 
friendship  with  Brockden  Brown  and  Irving,  did  not  fail 
to  seek  out  the  young  New  Englander  who  had  come  from 
near  his  former  home,  and  whose  poem  "Green  River" 
celebrated  a  stream  that  Coleman  knew  well.  On  Nov. 
16,  1825,  the  Evening  Post  republished  from  the  New 
York  Review  Bryant's  "The  Death  of  the  Flowers,"  on 
March  3,  1826,  It  took  from  a  magazine  his  "To  a 
Cloud,"  and  on  June  11  It  reprinted  "The  Song  of  Pit- 
cairn's  Island";  while  various  flattering  references  were 
made  to  his  work. 

Yet  Bryant's  position  was  a  precarious  and  anxious  one. 
He  wrote  his  friend  Dana  that,  relieved  as  he  was  to 
get  out  of  his  "shabby"  profession  as  a  lawyer,  in  which 
he  had  been  shocked  by  a  bad  miscarriage  of  justice  and 
by  the  petty  wrangles  in  which  he  was  involved,  he  was 


BRYANT  BECOMES  EDITOR  123 

not  sure  that  he  had  found  a  better.  Reviewing  books 
was  not  the  most  congenial  of  employments.  His  salary 
was  at  first  $1,000  a  year;  but  the  Review  drooped,  and 
after  an  effort  had  been  made  to  bolster  it  up  by  amal- 
gamation with  two  other  periodicals,  Bryant  found  him- 
self in  the  early  summer  of  1826  co-editor  of  the  United 
States  Review  and  Literary  Gazette,  with  a  quarter 
ownership  and  a  salary  of  only  $500.  His  confidence  in 
his  ability  to  live  by  his  pen  was  so  shaken  that  he  ob- 
tained a  permit  to  practice  law  in  the  city  courts,  and  was 
actually  associated  with  Henry  Sedgwick  in  a  case. 

At  this  juncture,  in  the  middle  of  June,  William  Cole- 
man was  thrown  from  his  gig  by  a  runaway  horse.  It 
was  for  a  time  doubted  whether  he  would  recover,  and 
as  he  was  confined  to  his  room  for  ten  weeks,  it  was  nec- 
essary to  find  some  one  to  assist  his  son  on  the  Evening 
Post.  A  temporary  position  was  offered  Bryant,  and 
Verplanck  and  others  earnestly  counselled  him  to  take  it. 
''The  establishment  is  an  extremely  lucrative  one,'*  wrote 
Bryant.  "It  is  owned  by  two  individuals — Mr.  Coleman 
and  Mr.  Burnham.  The  profits  are  estimated  at  about 
thirty  thousand  dollars  a  year — fifteen  to  each  proprietor. 
This  is  better  than  poetry  and  magazines." 

Throughout  July  Bryant  was  busy  upon  the  Evening 
Post;  on  Aug.  2  he  wrote  an  account  of  the  Columbia 
Commencement  for  it,  criticizing  the  young  speakers  for 
confusing  "will"  and  "shall";  and  on  Aug.  12  he  fur- 
nished It  two  brief  poetic  translations,  from  Clement 
Marot  and  Dante,  neither  of  which  is  Included  In  his  col- 
lected works.  Immediately  thereafter  he  set  out  on  a 
trip  to  Boston,  to  bear  to  Richard  H.  Dana  also  an  offer 
from  the  Evening  Post  of  a  permanent  place  on  Its  staff, 
which  Dana,  after  some  hesitation,  refused.  This  trip 
was  made  possible  by  Coleman's  renewed  attention  to 
the  journal.  The  poet's  absence  gave  the  Evening  Post 
an  opportunity  to  speak  highly  of  Bryant,  whom  it  now 
considered  a  full  staff-member.  On  Aug.  21-22  it  re- 
published his  poem  "The  Two  Graves"  from  the  United 
States  Review,  writing  of  the  accomplished  author  as  one 


124  THE  EVENING  POST 

to  whom,  "by  the  general  assent  of  the  enlightened  por- 
tion of  his  countrymen 

'The  lyre  and  laurels  both  are  given 

With  all  the  trophies  of  triumphant  day.'  " 

Another  evidence  of  the  high  esteem  in  which  the  news- 
paper held  Bryant  appeared  when  on  Sept.  5  it  translated 
from  the  Revue  Encyclopedique  of  Paris  a  flattering  no- 
tice of  "the  exquisite  and  finished  beauty  of  the  little 
poems  from  the  pen  of  W.  C.  Bryant."  The  French 
magazine  credited  "the  poet  of  the  Green  River"  with 
having  destroyed  "the  too  commonly  received  opinion  that 
the  moral  and  physical  features  of  the  New  World  are  too 
cold  and  serene  for  the  glorious  visions  of  poetry."  In 
October  Coleman  spoke  of  the  editors  of  the  United 
States  Review  as  "men  whose  labors  heretofore  have 
contributed  so  much  to  the  elevation  of  the  American 
character  in  the  republic  of  letters" ;  and  he  reprinted 
Bryant's  "Mary  Magdalene."  The  poet  returned  from 
Boston  via  Cummington,  and  brought  his  wife  with  him 
to  live. 

It  was  made  clear  to  readers  that  fall  that  there  was 
a  new  and  vigorous  hand  in  the  management  of  the  jour- 
nal. Coleman's  steady  loss  of  health  had  been  accom- 
panied by  a  decline  in  the  strength  of  his  editorial  utter- 
ances. Moreover,  he  was  an  editor  of  the  old  school  that 
had  passed  away  with  the  era  of  good  feeling,  and  that 
was  now  out  of  place.  He  liked  to  fight  over  old  battles 
— he  debated  the  Hartford  Convention  with  Theodore 
Dwight,  and  the  Florida  Purchase  with  the  National  Ad- 
vocate. His  newspaper  was  neither  Whig  nor  Democrat, 
but  might  best  be  described  as  a  Federalist  sheet  quali- 
fied by  a  mild  attachment  to  Andrew  Jackson.  In  the 
Presidential  election  of  1824  it  had  supported  Crawford 
simply  because  Coleman  hated  John  Quincy  Adams  as 
a  traitor  to  Federalism.  It  was  prosperous,  for  Michael 
Burnham,  still  an  active  man,  saw  to  that.  It  had  im- 
proved in  many  respects.  In  18 16  it  had  been  enlarged  to 
offer  six  columns  to  the  page,  instead  of  five,  or  twenty- 


BRYANT  BECOMES  EDITOR  125 

four  in  all,  and  the  amount  of  miscellaneous  matter  had 
increased;  a  short  time  earlier  It  had  begun  printing  two 
editions,  one  at  two  and  the  other  at  four  p.  m. ;  in  May, 
1 8 19,  It  had  used  its  first  news  illustration,  a  rough  draw- 
ing of  "the  velocipede,  or  swift-walker" ;  and  In  January, 
18 17,  it  had  begun  to  make  a  very  rare  use  of  the  first 
page  for  news.  But  the  journal  tended  too  much  to  look 
backward,  not  forward. 

Bryant's  son-in-law  and  biographer,  Parke  Godwin, 
states  that  in  the  years  1826-29  we  can  trace  his  labors 
in  the  Evening  Post  in  longer  and  better  book  reviews, 
more  attention  to  art,  clearer  characterizations  of  public 
men,  and  frequent  suggestions  of  reform  In  city  affairs. 
This  is  in  part  misleading.  The  frequent  suggestions  for 
local  improvements  were  an  old  feature  of  the  journal, 
and  did  not  become  more  numerous.  Characterizations 
of  public  men  were  not  often  written  nor  were  they 
important.  More  books  were  noticed,  especially  those  of 
Bliss  &  White  and  the  young  firm  of  Harpers,  because 
there  were  more  books — the  Post  remarked  that  in  the 
last  three  months  of  1825  no  less  than  233  volumes  had 
come  from  the  American  press,  apart  from  periodicals,  of 
which  137  were  original  American  works;  but  mere  no- 
tices were  furnished,  not  reviews.  More  than  once 
Bryant,  who  unmistakably  penned  these  notices,  apolo- 
gizes for  their  brevity  and  sketchiness  by  saying  that  he 
had  not  had  time  to  do  more  than  glance  through  the 
book  in  hand.  However,  the  frequency  of  these  notices, 
and  the  Inclusion  of  much  literary  gossip  and  book  an- 
nouncements, gave  the  newspaper  an  increased  literary 
flavor. 

There  was,  as  Godwin  says,  more  news  of  art,  for 
Bryant  was  Interested  in  painting,  and  supplied  long  criti- 
cal descriptions  of  new  canvases  by  Dunlap  and  Wash-  - 
ington  Allston,  both  his  friends.  There  was  an  increased 
amount  of  news  about  Columbia  College  and  those  pro- 
fessors, Anthon,  Da  Ponte,  and  Henry  J.  Anderson, 
whom  Bryant  knew  well.  The  English  magazines  and 
newspapers  were  read  more  diligently,   and  interesting 


126  THE  EVENING  POST 

items  from  them  grew  in  number.  Bryant  took  in  charge 
the  filling  of  the  upper  left-hand  corner  of  the  news- 
page  with  poetry,  and  we  see  fresher  and  better  verse 
there — verse  by  Thomas  Hood,  Bishop  Heber,  Hartley 
Coleridge,  and  other  Englishmen  who  preceded  Tenny- 
son and  Browning.  The  poet  wrote  some  fresh  little 
essays;  as  editor  of  the  United  States  Review,  for  exam- 
ple, he  had  compiled  a  curious  article  from  an  old  colonial 
file  of  the  New  York  Gazette,  and  he  made  another  on  the 
same  topic  equally  curious,  for  the  Evening  Post.  A 
few  of  the  essays  were  satirical — e.g.,  one  of  April  23, 
1828,  dealing  with  the  fashion  of  indiscriminate  puffery 
that  had  grown  up  in  dramatic  criticism. 

Between  1826  and  his  departure  upon  a  trip  to  Europe 
in  June,  1834,  Bryant — with  one  exception  to  be  noted 
later — wrote  no  signed  verse  for  the  Evening  Post,  re- 
serving his  few  productions,  since  he  was  too  busy  for 
much  poetical  composition,  for  the  magazines  and  an- 
nuals. But  several  effusions  from  his  pen  can  nevertheless 
be  identified.  In  the  first  two  months  of  1829  the  town 
was  much  interested  by  the  courageous  woman  lecturer, 
one  of  the  first  of  the  long  line  which  has  struggled  to 
enlarge  woman's  sphere.  Miss  Fanny  Wright.  Bryant, 
as  his  letters  show,  wrote  the  rather  scornful  ode  to  this 
free-thinking  disciple  of  Mary  Wollstonecraft  Godwin, 
which  appeared  in  the  issue  of  Jan.  ^ : 

Thou  wonder  of  the  age,  from  whom 

Religion  waits  her  final  doom, 

Her  quiet  death,  her  euthanasia, 

Thou  in  whose  eloquence  and  bloom 

The  age  beholds  a  new  Aspasia! 
*  *  *  *  *  ♦ 

O  'tis  a  glorious  sight  for  us. 
The  gaping  throng,  to  see  thee  thus 
The  light  of  dawning  truth  dispense. 
While  Col.  Stone,  the  learn'd  and  brave, 
The  press's  Atlas,  mild  but  grave. 
Hangs  on  the  words  that  leave  thy  mouth, 
Slaking  his  intellectual  drouth, 


BRYANT  BECOMES  EDITOR  127 

In  that  rich  stream  of  eloquence, 
And  notes  thy  teachings,  to  repeat 
Their  wisdom  in  his  classic  sheet  .  .  . 

Another  bit  of  verse,  a  short  political  satire  (March  25, 
1831),  is  identifiable  by  the  fact  that  it  is  signed  "Q," 
the  initial  Bryant  used  for  dramatic  criticism,  and  that  it 
is  marked  as  his  in  the  files  presented  by  the  Evening  Post 
to  the  Lenox  Collection.  Called  "The  Bee  in  the  Tar 
Barrel,"  it  represents  the  buzzings  of  the  National 
Gazette — Henry  Clay's  organ  in  New  York — over  the 
tariff,  the  removal  of  the  Cherokees,  and  other  current 
topics : 

I  heard  a  bee,  on  a  summer  day. 
Brisk,  and  busy,  and  ripe  for  quarrel — 
Bustling,  and  buzzing,  and  bouncing  away, 
In  the  fragrant  depths  of  an  old  tar-barrel. 

Do  you  ask  what  his  buzzing  was  all  about? 
Oh,  he  was  wondrous  shrewd  and  critical. 
'Twas  sport  to  hear  him  scold  and  flout, 
And  the  topics  he  chose  were  all  political  .  .  . 

Bryant  also  is  probably  to  be  credited  with  several  of 
the  last  New  Year's  addresses  of  the  carriers,  long 
rhymed  reviews  of  the  year's  events  which  were  then  ex- 
pected annually.  He  could  have  tossed  off  more  easily 
than  any  one  else  in  the  oflfice  such  hexameters  as  the 
following  (Jan.  2,  1829)  : 

Since  New  Year's  day  came  last  about, 

The  Emperor  Nicholas  sent  out 

A  potent  army,  full  of  fight, 

Cossack,  and  Pole,  and  Muscovite, 

To  give  the  Turks  a  castigation. 

Such  as  they  ne'er  had  since  creation. 

They  passed  the  Pruth  in  fine  condition, 

And  meeting  no  great  opposition. 

They  thought  to  make  their  winter  quarters 

By  Hellespont's  resounding  waters  .  .  . 

There  are  frequently  unsigned  poems  of  a  serious  char- 


128  THE  EVENING  POST 

acter  In  the  Evening  Post  during  these  years,  but  nine  in 
ten  are  so  poor  that  it  is  Impossible  to  believe  that  Bryant 
wrote  them.  Now  and  then  occurs  one  which  might  be 
his;  such,  for  example,  are  the  translations  of  lyrics  from 
the  German  of  Glelm  which  appeared  on  Nov.  13, 
1827,  and  Dec.  2,  1828.  Bryant  did  not  claim  all  of 
his  poems  in  even  the  United  States  Review;  it  has  been 
assumed  of  these,  and  it  may  be  assumed  of  any  lost  in 
the  Evening  Post  files,  that  they  were  not  worth  claiming. 
As  a  young  man,  Bryant  took  his  journalistic  duties 
light-heartedly,  and  one  of  his  distinctive  contributions 
lay  in  his  literary  hoaxes.  He  and  his  close  friend  Robert 
C.  Sands,  a  talented  young  assistant  of  Col.  Stone  in 
editing  the  Commercial  Advertiser,  delighted  in  them. 
"Did  you  see  a  learned  article  in  the  Evening  Post  the 
other  day  about  Pope  Alexander  VI  and  Caesar  Borgia?" 
he  wrote  Gulian  Verplanck,  then  a  Congressman  In  Wash- 
ington. "Matt.  Patterson  undertook  to  be  saucy  in  the 
Commercial  as  to  a  Latin  quotation  in  It,  so  we — i.e., 
Sands  and  myself — sent  him  on  a  fool's  errand."  The 
editor  of  the  Commercial  h3,d  corrected  the  Evening 
Post^s  Latin,  and  Bryant  had  replied  as  follows,  inventing 
the  authority  he  cited : 

As  to  the  Latin  of  the  phrase,  "Vides,  mi  fili,  quam  parva  sapi- 
entia  guhernatur  mundusi'  he  affirms  that  it  is  not  good.  He  says 
that  it  should  be,  "Vides,  mi  fili,  quantilla  sapientia  regitur 
mundus."  He  adds,  however,  that  it  was  not  said  by  any  of  the 
Popes,  but  by  some  great  statesman,  whose  name  he  does  not  give, 
probably  because  he  does  not  know  it.  As  to  the  correctness  of  the 
Latin,  that  is  no  business  of  ours.  ...  If  any  of  the  Popes  spoke 
bad  Latin,  two  or  three  hundred  years  before  we  were  born,  it 
should  be  recollected  that  it  was  not  in  our  power  to*  help  it.  As 
to  the  fact  of  the  phrase  being  made  use  of  by  one  of  the  Popes, 
we  will  only  say  to  the  writer  in  the  Commercial,  that  if  he  will 
consult  the  work  entitled  Virorum  Illustrium  Reliquice,  collected 
by  the  learned  Reisch  and  published  at  the  Hague,  by  John  and 
Daniel  Steucker,  in  1650,  a  work  well  known  to  scholars,  he  will 
find  that  the  words,  as  we  have  quoted  them,  were  addressed  by 
Pope  Alexander  VI  to  his  son  Caesar  Borgia. 


BRYANT  BECOMES  EDITOR  129 

Upon  a  more  elaborate  hoax  Bryant  and  Sands  were 
assisted  by  Professors  Anderson  and  Da  Ponte — "a  very 
learned  jeu  d'esprit,"  he  called  It.  It  was  a  long  letter 
to  the  Evening  Post  signed  John  Smith,  in  which  they 
took  a  familiar  couplet  and  translated  it  through  all  the 
principal  tongues,  ancient  and  modern,  even  into  several 
Indian  languages.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  these  erudite 
quips  had  a  large  audience;  but  Bryant's  ode  to  Fanny 
Wright  was  much  admired,  and  was  generally  attributed 
to  Halleck,  until  that  gentleman  disclaimed  it.  In  these  ^^ 
high-spirited  productions  we  see  a  side  of  Bryant  that 
largely  disappeared  under  his  growing  cares  and  the  dig- 
nity that  increased  with  his  celebrity.  We  see  the  Bryant 
who  used  to  meet  with  Verplanck  and  Sands  at  the  house 
of  the  latter's  father  in  the  hamlet  of  Hoboken,  and 
make  it  ring  with  declamation  and  uproarious  laughter. 
We  see  the  poet-editor  who  used  to  throw  off  all  anxieties 
and  go  for  long  walks,  studying  nature  or  chatting  with 
companions,  and  who  once  at  an  evening  party  apologized 
for  his  fatigue  by  explaining  that  he  had  .covered  the 
road  from  Haverstraw  to  New  York,  nearly  forty  miles, 
that  day.  Bryant  had  his  fun-loving  side,  and  the  few 
men  whom  he  found  closely  congenial  had  no  reason  to 
complain  of  his  coldness,  as  others  often  did.  "^-^ 

But  the  new  editor's  most  effective  impress  upon  the  fl/^ 
Evening  Post  was  in  its  political  and  economic  utterances,  j 
The  journal  had  already  inclined   toward   a   low-tariff ' 
policy,  for  the  commercial  community  of  New  York  op- 
posed protection;  but  its  editorials  upon  this  subject,  as 
upon  many  others,   were   feeble.      Bryant  in  the  year 
1822-24  had  been  led  by  his  friends  the  Sedgwicks  to 
study  the  British  economists,  Adam  Smith,  Thornton,  and 
Ricardo,  and  the  debates  upon  tariff  questions  prominent 
in  Parliament  about  1820.  Theodore  Sedgwick  was  a  pro- 1 
nounced  advocate  of  free  trade,  and  completely  converted^] 
Bryant.     From  the  young  man's  convictions  upon  this  l^^^^ 
subject  flowed  his  attachment  to  Jackson  as  an  opponent  \ 
of  protection  and  monopoly,  and  his  intense  dislike  of   1 
Clay,  the  leading  advocate  of  the  so-called  American  ( 


130  THE  EVENING  POST 

tariff  system.  He  had  once  been  a  Federalist,  and  as  a 
boy  had  written  a  hot  Federalist  poem,  "The  Embargo," 
but  his  free-trade  views  now  fast  made  him  an  ardent 
Democrat.  His  sympathies  in  commercial  legislation 
were  not  with  his  native  New  England,  but  with  the 
South. 

Martin  Van  Buren  writes  in  his  Autobiography  regard- 
ing the  "American"  or  protective  tariff  theories  that  "To 
the  very  exposition  of  the  system  and  the  persistent  as- 
saults upon  its  injustice,  and  impolicy  by  the  New  York 
Evening  Post,  the  country  is  more  indebted  for  its  final 
overthrow,  in  this  State  [New  York]  at  least,  than  to 
any  other  single  influence."  This  was  true.  Bryant, 
who  was  to  oppose  protection  till  his  death  in  1878,  lost 
no  time  in  1826  in  aligning  the  journal  against  the  legis- 
lation then  proposed  for  higher  duties  upon  woolens.  He 
^aracterized  the  act  of  1824  as  "our  last  and  worst" 
tariff,  and  that  autumn  supported  his  friend  Verplanck, 
with  C.  C.  Cambreleng  and  Jeromus  Johnson,  for  city 
seats  in  Congress  as  "the  avowed  opponents  of  restric- 
tive and  prohibitory  laws."  On  Nov.  16  he  wrote  con- 
cerning the  woolens  bill: 

From  1 81 5  to  the  present  day  the  demands  of  ouf  manufac- 
turers have  been  incessant ;  and  the  more  bounty  they  receive,  the 
more  exorbitant  their  claims.  It  is  time  that  they  should  be 
taught  to  wait,  as  other  branches  of  industry  do,  for  that  revival 
of  trade  which  can  alone  give  them  relief.  ...  If  the  woolen 
manufactures  have  grown  with  unnatural  rapidity  during  the  last 
ten  years,  no  legislativjc  remedy  can  be  applied ;  it  is  an  evil  which 
in  every  branch  of  industry  periodically  finds  its  own  remedy. 
All  acquainted  with  the  subject  know  that  our  manufacturing  is 
our  most  profitable  branch  of  industry,  and  we  trust  Congress 
will  no  longer  continue  to  pamper  capitalists  so  highly  favored  by 
circumstances. 

Almost  alone  among  the  Northern  newspapers — the 
Providence  Journal  was  its  most  important  ally — the 
^Evening  Post  unsuccessfully  combated  the  tariff  of  1828. 
The  newspaper  ascribed  to  it  the  Paterson  textile  strike 
of  I828,  and  predicted  that  these  industrial  outbreaks 


BRYANT  BECOMES  EDITOR  131 

would  yet  equal  the  Manchester  and  Birmingham  riots. 
In  1830  it  asked  where  were  the  busy  thousands  who  had 
once  been  employed  in  the  city's  shipyards,  along  the 
docks,  or  in  establishments  for  fitting  out  vessels.  A 
few  half-idle  men  were  left;  the  rest,  thanks  to  the  tariff, 
were  "in  the  miserable  abodes  of  poverty,  or  in  the 
poorhouse."  John  Jacob  Astor  early  in  1831  asked  for 
a  higher  duty  upon  furs,  declaring  that  he  was  undersold 
in  the  Eastern  market  by  British  traders  who  possessed 
an  advantage  in  dealing  with  the  Indians.  The  blankets, 
strouds,  and  garments  which  the  savages  liked  were  not 
made  in  the  United  States,  but  had  to  be  imported  from 
England  and  to  pay  a  heavy  duty,  so  that  the  Canadian 
fur  agents  could  offer  much  more  than  the  Americans  for 
pelts.  The  Evening  Post  pounced  upon  this  as  an  argu- 
ment not  for  a  tariff  upon  furs,  but  for  abating  the  tariff 
on  blankets  and  clothing. 

Naturally,  in  1828  the  Post  supported  Jackson  against 
J.  Q.  Adams  for  the  Presidency,  Bryant  adding  new  rea- 
sons to  those  Coleman  had  used  against  Adams  four 
years  earlier.  He  represented  the  section  that  clamored 
for  protection,  while  Jackson  was  for  a  lower  tariff. 
Under  the  urgings  of  Senator  Rufus  King  a  decade  be^ 
fore,  the  Post  had  said  hard  things  about  Jackson,  but 
now  it  praised  him  for  his  long  public  service,  for  his 
Roman  strength  of  will,  and  for  his  clearsighted  political 
tenets.  When  he  became  President,  it  supported  his 
Indian  policy;  it  urged  him  on,  as  we  shall  see  later,  in 
his  determination  to  crush  the  United  States  Bank.  The 
tariff  act  of  1832,  carrying  a  moderate  reduction  of  du- 
ties, it  naturally  applauded.  It  was  a  compromise  bill^ 
Bryant  admitted.  "Yet  a  large  majority  of  the  friends 
of  free  trade  are  satisfied  with  it,  because  although  not 
what  they  would  have  it,  it  is  still  a  positive  good,  it 
simplifies  the  collection  of  the  revenue,  it  removes  many 
of  the  embarrassments  in  the  way  of  the  fair  trader,  it 
diminishes  the  temptation  to  smuggling,  and  it  is  an  ap- 
proach, if  nothing  more,  to  a  fair  and  equal  system  of 
duties." 


[/ 


132  THE  EVENING  POST 

While  giving  the  Evening  Post  a  clear-cut,  courageous 
tariff  policy,  Bryant  did  much  else  with  the  editorial  page. 
Early  in  1827  he  came  out  with  a  far  more  ringing  de- 
nunciation of  lotteries  than  it  had  before  printed,  and  in 
August  he  induced  It  to  announce  that  It  would  accept  no 
more  advertisements  relating  directly  or  indirectly  to 
*  {tickets  in  them.  During  the  same  year,  following  a  num- 
ber of  business  failures  in  the  city,  he  wrote  in  advocacy 
of  a  comprehensive  national  bankruptcy  act,  such  as  was 
not  passed  till  near  the  end  of  the  century.  To  his  sur- 
prise, merchants  frowned  on  the  proposal,  and  the  Eve- 
ning Post  was  left,  in  his  expressive  words,  "like  a  public 
actor  who  believes  he  has  just  said  something  highly  to 
the  purpose,  and  looks  around  for  applause,  but  meets 
only  hisses."  Later,  In  1837,  ^^^  Buren  formerly  recom- 
mended a  general  bankruptcy  law  to  Congress,  but  again 
It  met  with  no  favor.  A  number  of  steamboat  accidents 
caused  the  journal  to  press  for  legislation  punishing  crim- 
inal carelessness  and  manslaughter  by  fitting  penitentiary 
sentences.  It  took  up  with  zeal,  following  Jackson's 
Inaugural  message,  the  Administration's  campaign  against 
the  policy  of  national  aid  to  internal  Improvements,  for 
Bryant  regarded  such  gifts  to  special  local  and  political 
interests  as  an  evil  almost  as  great  as  protective  tariff. 

When  the  first  rumblings  of  nullification  were  heard 
from  South  Carolina  in  1829,  the  Evening  Post  refused 
to  follow  those  newspapers  which  treated  the  subject 
flippantly.  "Every  man  of  common  sense  must  know 
that  if  but  a  single  stave  Is  withdrawn  from  the  barrel, 
it  inevitably  tumbles  to  pieces,"  Bryant  warned  his  read- 
ers; "and  that  whatever  be  the  dimensions  of  the  stave 
withdrawn,  the  catastrophe  Is  equally  sure  and  fatal."  It 
was  impossible  for  the  journal  not  to  sympathize  with 
the  hot-tempered  South  Carolinians  who  wanted  to  de- 
stroy the  application  of  the  tariff  of  1828  to  their  State. 
It  thought  that  Col.  Hayne  was  no  more  wrong  about 
the  Constitution  than  the  turncoat  Webster  was  wrong 
about  the  tariff;  but  It  warned  Calhoun's  and  Hayne's 
followers  that  their  project  was  "insane" : 


BRYANT  BECOMES  EDITOR  133 

It  is  the  destiny  of  all  republics  to  be  agitated  occasionally  by 
the  desperate  plans  of  disappointed  and  ambitious  men,  resolved 
to  rule  or  ruin.  Such  might  succeed  with  a  corrupt  people,  but 
not  in  our  intelligent  and  free  land.  Public  opinion  has  indig- 
nantly rejected  every  proposition  to  dismember  our  confederacy, 
and  has  pronounced  a  just  judgment  on  those  who  prefer  them- 
selves to  their  country — we  have  already  among  us  more  than 
one  blasted  monument  of  selfish  ambition.  The  wreck  of  our 
republic  is  not  yet  at  hand — the  people's  devotion  to  the  Union 
is  invincible,  and  the  same  verdict  awaits  every  man,  whether  of 
the  North,  the  South,  the  East,  or  the  West,  who  would  dare  to 
violate  its  integrity.     (Aug.  29,  1832.) 

Whether  applauding  Jackson  as  he  sternly  recalled 
South  Carolina  to  Its  senses,  or  attacking  the  protection- 
ist doctrines,  Bryant  tried  to  open  his  editorials  with 
a  flash  of  humor  or  an  apposite  story.  When  the 
American  delayed  a  twelvemonth  In  apologizing  for  an 
Insult  to  Jackson,  he  told  the  anecdote  of  the  worthy 
widow  whose  husband  had  been  dead  for  seven  years  and 
who  declared  that  she  could  stand  It  no  longer.  The 
opponent  who  sighed  for  the  time  when  the  Administra- 
tion would  go  into  a  state  of  "retiracy"  reminded  him 
of  the  Irishman  who  had  rushed  for  a  map  when  he 
learned  that  Napoleon  had  taken  Umbrage.  An  ex- 
change with  a  discourteous  antagonist  recalled  the  mem- 
ber of  the  House  of  Commons  who,  having  said  that  a 
colleague  was  not  fit  to  carry  guts  to  a  bear,  and  being 
required  to  apologize,  stated:  'T  retract — you  are  fit  to 
carry  guts  to  a  bear."  During  1831  many  Americans 
were  boasting  of  having  known  Louis  Philippe  when  he 
was  an  expatriate  in  this  country;  and  in  rebuke  to  their 
snobbery,  the  editor  spoke  of  the  man  who  was  proud  of 
having  been  noticed  by  a  king — the  king  had  said,  ''Get 
out  of  my  way,  you  scoundrel!"  Bryant  wrote  laboriously, 
not  fluently,  and  made  so  many  corrections  that  his  copy 
\vas  often  almost  illegible;  but  he  wrote  with  polish. 

Coleman's  health  after  his  runaway  accident  steadily 
failed.  He  had  wholly  lost  the  use  of  his  lower  limbs,  and 
Bryant  tells  us  that  his  appearance  was  remarkable.    ''He 


134  THE  EVENING  POST 

was  of  a  full  make,  with  a  broad  chest,  muscular  arms, 
which  he  wielded  lightly  and  easily,  and  a  deep-toned 
voice;  but  his  legs  dangled  like  strings."  The  National 
Journal  of  July,  1827,  commented  upon  his  declining 
strength,  in  April  and  June,  1828,  Evening  Post  readers 
were  told  that  he  was  confined  to  his  home,  and  on  July 
14,  1829,  he  died.  Bryant  instantly  became,  what  he  had 
previously  been  in  all  but  name,  editor-in-chief.  Some  as- 
sistance was  needed,  for  Coleman's  son,  though  a  man  of 
literary  tastes,  did  not  wish  to  enter  the  office.  In  1827  a 
share  in  the  newspaper  had  been  offered  to  Robert  Sands, 
but  after  some  hesitation  he  had  declined  it.  Now  an  edi- 
torial position,  and  the  opportunity  of  becoming  part 
owner,  was  tendered  William  Leggett,  a  spirited  young 
reformer  who  had  been  connected  with  the  Morning 
Chronicle,  and  more  recently  had  been  editor  of  a  frail 
weekly  called  the  Critic,  the  final  numbers  of  which  he 
had  not  only  written  but  set  up,  printed,  and  delivered 
himself.     He  gladly  accepted. 

Within  four  and  a  half  years  of  coming  to  the  city 
a  literary  adventurer,  Bryant  had  thus  become  editor  of 
one  of  its  oldest  and  most  prosperous  journals.     He  had 
done  this  not  because  he  had  an  inborn  tendency  to  jour- 
nalism, not  because  he  wished  to  make  a  newspaper  the 
sounding  board  for  certain  ideas  or  doctrines,  but  chiefly 
because  he  could  not  live  by  pure  literature,  and  because 
the  bar,  for  which  he  was  in  many  ways  well  equipped, 
\  did  not  please  him.     But  he  did  bring  to  the  newspaper 
I  great  ability  and  high  ideals.    No  American  editor  of  im- 
l  portance  had  made  such  use  of  the  editorial  page  as  he 
I  began  to  make.     He  had  a  love  of  freedom,  a  sense  of 
Ijustice,  and  a  shrewd  judgment  of  men  and  affairs,  which 
his  retiring  nature  debarred  him  from  bringing  into  play 
in  any  other  way.     As  an  editor,  this  shy,  unsocial  man 
could  work  at  arm's  length  for  the  benefit  of  the  people 
and  nation,  and  except  at  arm's  length  he  could  have  had 
no  public  career  at  all.    He  was  willing  to  toil  hard  in  his 
chosen  calling,  and  for  many  years  to  push  poetry,  though 
upon  poetry  alone  he  relied  for  enduring  fame,  into  a 


BRYANT  BECOMES  EDITOR  135 

secondary  position.  He  had  a  keen  sense  of  the  dignity 
that  should  belong  to  his  profession,  and  by  word  as  well 
as  example  preached  against  that  use  of  epithet  and 
insult  which  was  then  common  in  it.  In  one  of  his  early 
essays  he  deplored  the  character  of  many  journalists: 

Yet  the  vocation  of  a  newspaper  editor  is  a  useful  and  indis-  /   ^ 
pensable,  and,  if  rightly  exercised,  a  noble  vocation.     It  possesses  j 
this  essential  element  of  dignity — that  they  who  are  engaged  in  it 
are  occupied  with  questions  of  the  highest  importance  to  the  hap- 
piness of  mankind.     We  cannot  see,  for  our  part,  why  it  should 
not  attract  men  of  the  first  talents  and  the  most  exalted  virtues. 
Why  should  not  the  discussions  of   the  daily   press   demand  as 
strong  reasoning  powers,  as  large  and  comprehensive  ideas,  as  pro-    '■ 
found  an  acquaintance  with  principles,  eloquence  as  commanding, 
and  a  style  of  argument  as  manly  and  elevated,  as  the  debates  of     , 
the  Senate? 

Once  established  in  full  charge  of  the  Evening  Post, 
with  a  capable  lieutenant,  he  was  able  to  make  rapid,  far- 
reaching,  and  profitable  improvements  In  the  form  of  the 
journal.  In  1829  it  was  still  closely  akin  to  the  Evening 
Post  of  1 80 1 — four  pages  of  six  columns  each,  much 
smaller  than  newspaper  pages  of  to-day,  dingily  printed 
and  ineffectively  made  up.  When  he  left  for  Europe 
five  years  later  the  four  pages  had  seven  columns  each, 
and  were  much  larger  than  present-day  pages — great 
blanket  papers.  Old  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke  wrote 
Bryant  complaining  that  these  expansive  sheets  crinkled 
so  badly  in  the  mail  that  he  had  to  have  his  housekeeper 
iron  them  out.  But  the  results  of  the  enlargement  were 
an  enhanced  revenue  from  advertisements,  and  a  rise  of 
the  subscription  list,  at  $10  a  year,  above  2,000.  In 
1834  the  management  boasted  that  the  journal  had  never 
been  in  a  more  prosperous  condition,  and  that  not  three 
other  papers  in  the  city  were  so  productive.  The  whole 
number  of  employees,  including  those  in  the  mechanical 
departments,  was  then  thirty. 

When  Bryant  wrote  his  wife  in  1826  that  the  Evening 
Post's  profits  were  $30,000   a  year,   he   overestimated 


136  THE  EVENING  POST 

them;  Its  gross  receipts  were  only  that  much.  But 
Bryant's  share  In  the  newspaper,  which  was  at  first 
one-eighth,  which  In  1830  became  one-fourth.  In  1832 
was  one-third  of  seven-eighths,  and  In  1833  was  a  full 
third,  sufficed  to  free  him  from  all  money  cares  at  once, 
and  within  a  short  time  to  make  him  prosperous.  The 
journal's  books  were  balanced  each  year  on  Nov.  16,  the 
anniversary  of  Its  founding.  On  that  date  In  1829,  it 
was  found  that  the  net  profits  were  $10,544,  of  which 
Bryant's  one-eighth  made  $1,318.04.  The  next  year  the 
net  profits  had  risen  to  $13,466,  and  Bryant's  quarter 
share  was  $3,366.51.  In  1831  there  was  a  further  in- 
crease to  $14,429,  making  Bryant's  income  $3,507.24. 
A  heavy  slump  occurred  the  following  twelvemonth,  cut- 
ting the  net  profits  to  $10,220,  and  the  poet's  share  to 
$2,980.99,  but  this  was  only  temporary.  For  the  half- 
year  alone  ending  May  16,  1833 — the  figures  for  the  full 
year  are  lost — the  profits  were  $6,000.35,  making  Bry- 
ant's Income  for  six  months  exactly  $2,000;  and  for  the 
full  year  which  closed  Nov.  16,  1834,  his  one-third  share 
yielded  no  less  than  $4,646.20.  In  those  days  an  income 
of  $4,000  or  above  was  handsome,  and  Bryant  was  able 
to  sail  In  the  summer  of  1834  with  a  full  purse. 

The  literary  world,  however,  looked  with  cold  dis- 
approval upon  Bryant's  entrance  into  the  newspaper  field, 
which  it  believed  was  occupied  by  cheap  political  con- 
troversialists, and  thought  offered  an  atmosphere  hostile 
to  poetry.  It  found  confirmation  for  this  attitude  in  the 
marked  slackening  of  Bryant's  productiveness  as  a  poet. 
Of  the  whole  quantity  of  verse  which  he  wrote  during  his 
long  lifetime,  about  13,000  lines,  approximately  one- 
third  had  been  composed  before  1829.  During  1830  he 
wrote  but  thirty  lines,  during  1831  but  sixty,  in  1832  only 
two  hundred  and  twenty-two,  and  in  1833  apparently 
none  at  all;  nor  was  his  verse  of  this  period  in  his  best 
vein.  He  was  too  completely  occupied  in  mastering  his 
new  calling  to  cultivate  the  muse. 

"Would  that  Mr.  Bryant  was  employed  in  writing 
poetry  .  .  .  and  sending  back  his  thoughts  to  the  streams 


BRYANT  BECOMES  EDITOR  137 

and  mountains  which  his  young  eyes  were  familiar  with, 
and  from  which  he  drank  his  first  inspiration!"  lamented 
a  writer  in  the  New  England  Magazine  for  1831.  *'But 
alas  I  he  is  busied  about  far  other  things,  and  what  he  is 
writing,  is  as  little  like  poetry,  as  Gen.  Jackson  Is  like 
Apollo."  This  writer  had  called  on  the  editor  in  his  little 
Pine  Street  office.  "He  is  a  man  rather  under  the  middle 
height  than  otherwise,  with  bright  blue  eyes  and  an  ample 
forehead,  but  not  very  distinguished  either  in  face  or 
person,"  we  are  told.  "His  manners  are  quiet  and  unas- 
suming, and  marked  with  a  slight  dash  of  diffidence;  and 
his  conversation  (when  he  does  converse,  for  he  is  more 
used  to  thinking  than  talking),  is  remarkably  free  from 
pretension,  and  is  characterized  by  good  sense  rather  than 
genius."  Why  could  he  not  have  remained  a  lawyer  in 
Great  Barrlngton,  amid  his  Berkshire  hills  and  brooks? 

We  cannot  close  this  notice  without  again  expressing  our  sor- 
row at  the  nature  of  Mr.  Bryant's  present  occupation,  and  that  a 
man  capable  of  writing  poetry  to  make  so  many  hearts  throb,  and 
so  many  eyes  glisten  with  delight,  should  be  lending  himself  to 
an  employment  in  which  the  greater  the  success  the  more  occasion 
there  is  for  regret,  for  it  must  arise  from  the  exertion  of  those 
very  qualities  which  we  are  least  willing  a  poet  should  possess. 
"  'Tis  strange,  'tis  passing  strange,  'tis  pitiful,  that"  he  should 
hang  up  his  own  cunning  harp  upon  the  willows,  and  take  to 
blowing  a  brazen  and  discordant  trumpet  in  the  ranks  of  faction. 

An  early  number  of  the  Southern  Literary  Messenger 
regretted  that  Bryant  was  to  be  found  "dashing  in  the 
political  vortex"  with  those  who  "engage  In  party  squab- 
bles." The  New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer,  In  an  ut- 
terance of  1832  which  is  to  be  discounted  because  of 
editorial  jealousy,  remarked  that  "he  has  embarked  in 
a  pursuit  not  suited  to  his  genius  and  utterly  at  variance 
with  all  his  studies  and  habits  of  mind.  We  wish  him 
a  better  fate  than  can  ever  be  his  while  doomed  to  follow 
a  business  for  which  he  has  not  a  solitary  qualification, 
and  compelled  to  give  utterance  to  sentiments  he  most 
cordially  despises." 


138  THE  EVENING  POST 

To  a  certain  extent  Bryant  agreed  with  these  writers. 
I  He  did  not  believe  journalism  an  unworthy  or  undigni- 
!  fied  occupation.  In  the  Evening  Post  of  July  30,  1830, 
I  he  gave  reasons  for  holding  the  contrary  opinion,  descant- 
ing upon  the  value  of  the  opportunity  to  guide  the  think- 
Vjing  of  thousands.  "In  combating  error  in  all  shapes  and 
disguises,"  he  wrote,  it  was  ample  compensation  for  an 
editor's  trials  "to  perceive  that  you  are  understood  by  the 
intelligent,  and  appreciated  by  the  candid,  and  that  truth 
and  correct  principles  are  gradually  extending  their  sway 
through  your  efforts."  But  he  had  no  attachment  as  yet 
to  the  editorial  career,  he  wanted  with  all  his  heart  to 
have  leisure  for  pure  literature,  and  he  meant  to  get  out 
of  the  newspaper  office  as  quickly  and  finally  as  possible. 
He  bracketed  it  with  the  law  as  a  "wrangling  profes- 
sion," and  talked  of  being  chained  to  the  oar.  Always 
fond  of  travel,  he  escaped  from  his  desk  after  1830  as 
much  as  he  possibly  could.  In  January,  1832,  he  took  a 
trip  to  Washington,  making  the  establishment  of  a  reg- 
ular Washington  correspondence  his  excuse,  and  had  a 
conversation  of  three  quarters  of  an  hour  there  with 
Jackson.  That  spring  he  made  an  excursion  to  Illinois, 
to  visit  his  brothers.  During  the  summer  of  1833  he  went 
to  Montreal  and  Quebec.  When  he  took  passage  abroad 
on  June  24,  1834,  he  hoped  that  the  business  capacity  of 
Michael  Burnham  and  the  editorial  capacity  of  William 
Leggett  would  make  anything  but  intermittent  attention 
by  him  to  the  Evening  Post  thenceforth  unnecessary.  "I 
have  been  employed  long  enough  with  the  management  of 
a  daily  newspaper,  and  desire  leisure  for  literary  occupa- 
tions that  I  love  better,"  he  later  wrote  his  brother.  "It 
was  not  my  intention  when  I  went  to  Europe  to  return  to 
the  business  of  conducting  a  newspaper."  He  hoped  that 
his  third  share  would  support  him. 

How  these  expectations  were  suddenly  wrecked,  and 
how  Bryant  was  brought  back  by  harsh  necessity  to  res- 
cue the  Evening  Post  from  ruin,  is  a  dramatic  story. 


CHAPTER  SIX 

WILLIAM  LEGGETT  ACTING  EDITOR;  DEPRESSION,  RIVALRY, 
AND  THREATENED  RUIN 

One  of  the  most  popular  pieces  of  sculpture  the  country 
has  ever  known,  Horatio  Greenough's  "Chaunting  Cher- 
ubs," was  being  widely  discussed  in  the  early  thirties,  as 
was  Hiram  Powers's  ''Greek  Slave,"  a  little  later.  In  a 
witty  moment  the  Courier  and  Enquirer  christened  Bryant 
and  William  Leggett,  for  Leggett  also  wrote  poetry,  "the 
chaunting  cherubs  of  the  Evening  PostJ'  The  name  had 
outward  appropriateness,  but  it  would  really  have  been 
more  fitting  to  call  Leggett  a  spouting  volcano. 

While  Bryant  controlled  the  journal,  it  abstained  from 
any  harsh  abuse  of  other  journals.  His  rule  was  to  notice 
no  personal  attacks,  and  to  make  none  in  retaliation. 
Only  once  in  fifty  years  did  he,  passing  in  the  street  an 
editorial  adversary  who  had  given  him  the  lie  direct,  lose 
control  of  himself.  The  diarist  Philip  Hone  tells  the 
story  under  date  of  April  20,  1831 : 

While  I  was  shaving  this  morning  at  eight  o'clock,  I  witnessed 
from  the  front  window  an  encounter  In  the  street  nearly  opposite, 
between  William  C.  Bryant  and  William  L.  Stone;  the  former 
one  of  the  editors  of  the  Evening  Post,  and  the  latter  editor  of  the 
Commercial  Advertiser.  The  former  commenced  the  attack  by 
striking  Stone  over  the  head  with  a  cowskin;  after  a  few  blows 
the  men  closed,  and  the  whip  was  wrested  from  Bryant  and  car- 
ried off  by  Stone.  When  I  saw  them  first,  two  younger  persons 
were  engaged,  but  soon  discontinued  their  fight. 

The  next  day  Bryant  made  a  public  statement  of  this 
incident,  pointing  out  the  gross  provocation  that  he  had 
received,  but  apologizing  to  his  readers  for  having  taken 
the  law  into  his  own  hands.  Particularly  as  there  de- 
veloped some  doubt  whether  Col.  Stone  was  the  author 

139 


140  THE  EVENING  POST 

of  the  attack,  he  could  never  hear  the  matter  referred  to 
without  showing  his  chagrin  and  regret. 

But  Bryant  had  no  sooner  left  the  office  for  Europe 
than  it  became  plain  that  Leggett  had  no  such  scruples. 
In  one  brief  paragraph  he  managed  to  call  the  editor  of 
the  Star  a  wretch,  liar,  coward,  and  a  vile  purchased  tool 
who  would  do  anything  for  money.  The  "venomous 
drivel"  of  the  Commercial  Advertiser  might  sometimes 
require  notice,  he  wrote  a  few  days  later,  but  his  con- 
tempt for  the  editor  was  "so  supreme  that  to  us,  per- 
sonally, he  is  as  if  he  were  not — a  perfect  non-entity." 
In  the  autumn  Assembly  campaign  Leggett  shotted  his 
guns,  and  on  Sept.  23  and  24  let  off  broadsides  that  shook 
the  town.  He  accused  the  Daily  Advertiser  of  "a  vile 
untruth" ;  he  called  the  editor  of  the  American  a 
"detestable  caitiff,"  a  "craven  wretch,  spotted  with 
all  kinds  of  vices,"  and  "a  hireling  slave  and  public 
incendiary";  while  he  characterized  the  Courier  and 
Enquirer  as  a  blustering,  bullying  sheet,  reeking  with 
falsehood,  pandering  to  the  vulgar,  profligate,  im- 
pudent, inane,  and  inciting  men  to  riot  and  bloodshed. 
On  Sept.  26  Leggett  was  able  to  fill  a  column  with 
answers.  "The  editor  is  deranged,"  said  the  American; 
he  should  be  "committed  to  Bedlam,"  averred  the 
Gazette;  "a  writ  de  lunatico^^  is  needed,  chimed  in  the 
Courier;  this,  said  the  Star,  "is  too  true  to  make  a  jest 
of";  and  the  Boston  Atlas  professed  horror  at  "the  fero- 
cious, mad,  and  bloody  words  of  this  desperate  print." 

Leggett  was  not  deranged,  but  simply  in  full  fighting 
trim,  and  showing  the  defects  of  his  really  sterling  vir- 
tues. By  sheer  slashing  vigor  as  a  political  writer  he 
achieved  in  a  half  dozen  years  upon  the  Evening  Post 
a  permanent  fame  as  a  reformer  and  controversialist. 
Whittier,  in  his  essays,  compares  Leggett  with  Hampden 
and  Vane,  and  declares  that  "no  one  has  labored  more 
perseveringly,  or,  in  the  end,  more  successfully,  to  bring 
the  practice  of  American  democracy  into  conformity  with 
its  professions."  His  poetical  tribute  to  "the  bold  re- 
former" and  his  "free  and  honest  thought,  the  angel  ut- 


LEGGETT  ACTING  EDITOR  141 

terance  of  an  upright  mind,"  is  better  known.  Theodore 
Sedgwick,  Jr.,  believed  that  but  for  Leggett's  untimely 
end  he  might  have  made  one  of  the  greatest  names  in 
American  history.      Bryant's  memorial  tribute : 

The  words  of  fire  that  from  his  pen 
Were  flung  upon  the  fervid  page, 
Still  move,  still  shake  the  hearts  of  men, 
Amid  a  cold  and  coward  age, 

was  no  exaggeration,  but  true  for  the  whole  generation 
which  followed  Leggett's  death.  The  editor's  political 
writings  were  perhaps  the  most  potent  force  in  shaping 
the  ideas  of  democracy  held  by  Walt  Whitman,  who  in 
1847  wrote  of  the  necessity  of  following  the  doctrines  of 
the  "great  Jefferson  and  the  glorious  Leggett,"  and  who 
in  his  old  age  spoke  to  Horace  Traubel  of  his  high  admira- 
tion for  him.  A  recent  historical  writer  has  said  that 
Leggett  was  "one  of  the  most  sincere  and  briUiant  apos- 
tles of  democracy  that  America  has  ever  known." 

When  Leggett  became  junior  editor  of  the  Evening 
Post  he  was  known  solely  as  a  writer  of  essays,  stories, 
and  verse.  He  was  a  New  Yorker  by  birth,  but  had  been 
educated  at  Georgetown,  D.  C,  had  been  given  a  taste 
of  Illinois  prairie  life  in  his  later  youth,  and  had  entered 
the  navy  as  a  midshipman  at  the  age  of  twenty,  resigning 
six  years  later  because  of  the  overbearing  conduct  of  his 
commander.  A  volume  of  his  poems,  "Leisure  Hours 
at  Sea,"  and  some  tales  of  pioneer  and  sailor  life  which 
he  published  in  annuals  and  magazines,  gave  him  a  suffi- 
cient reputation  to  enable  him  to  found  his  weekly  mis- 
cellany, the  Critic.  He  stipulated  with  Bryant  that  he 
should  not  be  required  to  write  upon  political  topics,  "on 
which  he  had  no  settled  opinions,  and  for  which  he  had 
no  taste" ;  but  within  a  few  months  he  found  himself 
almost  wholly  devoted  to  them.  Bryant  imbued  him 
with  his  own  ardent  free-trade  doctrines,  and  his  own 
warm  admiration  for  Jackson  and  Jacksonian  measures. 
He  was  eight  years  younger  than  the  senior  editor.  His 
associates  describe  him  as  a  man  of  middle  stature,  com- 


142  THE  EVENING  POST 

pact  frame,  great  endurance,  and  a  constitution  naturally 
strong,  but  somewhat  impaired  by  an  attack  of  the  yellow 
fever  while  serving  with  the  United  States  squadron 
in  the  West  Indies.  His  naval  training  had  given  him 
a  dignified  bearing,  his  address  was  easy,  and  his  affability 
and  mildness  of  manner  surprised  those  who  had  known 
him  only  by  his  fiery  writings.  He  was  fond  of  study; 
and  his  ability  to  write  fluently  in  his  crowded,  littered 
back  room  on  Pine  Street,  the  crash  of  the  presses  in  his 
ear,  amid  a  thousand  distractions,  amazed  everybody. 

Bryant  and  Leggett  had  now  labored  together  five 
years,  1 829-1 834.  The  chief  local  occurrence  in  this 
period  was  the  great  cholera  epidemic  of  1832,  causing  an 
exodus  from  the  city  which  the  Evening  Post  of  August  6 
estimated  at  above  100,000.  The  two  editors  worked 
manfully,  though  perhaps  hardly  candidly,  to  allay  the 
panic.  Although  the  first  case  appeared  on  June  26,  so 
late  as  July  13  they  maintained  that  there  was  no  epi- 
demic, in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word;  and  ten  days  later 
they  denied  with  vehemence  the  allegation  of  the  Courier 
and  Enquirer,  which  was  exaggerating  the  plague,  that 
two  Evening  Post  employees  had  died  of  cholera. 

Throughout  the  great  war  over  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  the  Evening  Post  had  stood  by  the  President. 
Jackson  appealed  to  the  loyalty  of  Bryant  and  Leggett 
in  equal  degree,  but  differently.  To  Leggett  he  was  "the 
man  of  the  people,"  a  son  of  the  frontier,  a  democrat 
from  heel  to  crown.  In  Bryant  he  awakened  the  same 
admiration  that  he  aroused  in  Irving,  Cooper,  Bancroft, 
and  in  Landor  abroad:  admiration  for  his  adventurous 
heroism,  his  unspotted  honesty,  his  simplicity,  his  stern 
directness,  his  tenacity  in  pressing  forward  to  his  goal. 
One  had  to  be  either  the  wholehearted  admirer  of  "Old 
Hickory"  or  his  wholehearted  opponent,  and  as  early  as 
Jackson  Day  in  1828  Bryant  had  become  the  former, 
writing  for  a  dinner  at  Masonic  Hall  an  ode  which,  ac- 
cording to  Verplanck,  threw  Van  Buren  into  ecstasies. 
Not  a  single  measure  of  Jackson's,  not  even  his  wholesale 
removals  from  office  under  the  spoils  system,  was  cen- 


LEGGETT  ACTING  EDITOR  143 

sured  by  the  Evening  Post,  and  by  1832,  after  the  end  of 
nullification,  it  was  hailing  him  as  "the  man  destined  to 
stand  in  history  by  the  side  of  Washington,  the  one 
bearing  the  proud  title  of  the  Father  of  his  Country,  the 
other  the  scarcely  less  illustrious  one  of  Preserver  of  the 
Union." 

All  Jackson's  charges  against  the  Bank — that  it  was 
a  source  of  political  corruption,  that  it  was  monopolistic, 
that  it  was  hostile  to  popular  interests  and  dangerous  to 
the  government,  that  it  was  unsafely  managed — were 
echoed  by  Bryant  and  Leggett.  Probably  only  the  accu- 
sation that  it  had  gone  into  politics  was  fully  warranted, 
but  the  Evening  Post  pressed  them  all.  Speaking  of  the 
Bank's  "enormous  powers"  and  "its  barefaced  bribery 
and  corruption,"  it  applauded  Jackson's  veto  of  the  bill 
to  recharter  it,  and  his  withdrawal  In  1833  of  the  gov- 
ernment deposits  in  it.  When  the  Bank  curtailed  its  loans 
to  meet  the  withdrawal  of  these  deposits,  the  editors 
thought  that  It  was  trying  to  coerce  the  people  and  gov- 
ernment, by  threatening  a  panic,  into  yielding.  "The 
object  of  the  Bank  is  to  create  a  pressure  for  money, 
to  impair  the  confidence  of  business  men  In  each  other, 
and  to  keep  the  community  at  large  in  a  state  of  great 
uncertainty  and  confusion,  in  the  hope  that  men  will  at 
last  say,  'let  us  have  the  Bank  rechartered,  rather  than 
that  .  .  .  the  whole  country  should  be  thrown  Into  dis- 
tress.' "  The  alliance  of  the  chief  statesmen  in  Congress 
on  behalf  of  the  Bank  drew  from  the  journal  three  inter- 
esting characterizations   (March  31,   1834)  : 

Clay: —  .  .  .  The  parent  and  champion  of  the  tariff  and  in- 
ternal improvements ;  of  a  system  directly  opposed  to  the  interests 
and  prosperity  of  every  merchant  in  the  United  States,  and  calcu- 
lated and  devised  for  the  purpose  of  organizing  an  extensive  and 
widespread  scheme  through  which  the  different  portions  of  the 
United  States  might  be  bought  up  in  detail.  ...  By  assuming  the 
power  of  dissipating  the  public  revenue  in  local  improvements, 
by  which  one  portion  of  the  community  would  be  benefited  at 
the  expense  of  many  others.  Congress  acquired  the  means  of  in- 
fluencing and  controlling  the  politics  of  every  State  in  the  Union, 


144  THE  EVENING  POST 

and  of  establishing  a  rigid,  invincible  consolidated  government. 
By  assuming  the  power  of  protecting  any  class  or  portion  of  the 
industry  of  this  country,  by  bounties  in  the  shape  of  high  duties 
on  foreign  importations,  they  placed  the  labor  and  industry  of 
the  people  entirely  at  their  own  disposal,  and  usurped  the  preroga- 
tive of  dispensing  all  the  blessings  of  Providence  at  pleasure.  .  .  . 

It  is  against  this  great  system  for  making  the  rich  richer,  the 
poor  poorer,  and  thus  creating  those  enormous  disproportions  of 
wealth  which  are  always  the  forerunner  of  the  loss  of  freedom; 
it  is  against  this  great  plan  of  making  the  resources  of  the  General 
Government  the  means  of  obtaining  the  control  of  the  States  by 
an  adroit  species  of  political  bribery,  that  General  Jackson  has 
arrayed  himself.  .  .  .  He  has  arrested  the  one  by  his  influence, 
the  other  by  his  veto. 

Calhoun: — Reflecting  and  honest  men  may  perhaps  wonder  to 
see  this  strange  alliance  between  the  man  by  whom  the  tariff  was 
begotten,  nurtured,  and  brought  to  a  monstrous  maturity,  and 
him  who  carried  his  State  to  the  verge  of  rebellion  in  opposition 
to  that  very  system.  By  his  means  and  influence,  this  great 
Union  was  all  but  dissolved,  and  in  all  probability  would  at  this 
moment  lie  shattered  into  fragments,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
energetic  and  prompt  patriotism  of  the  stern  old  man  who  then 
said,  "The  Union — it  must  be  preserved."  Even  at  this  moment 
Mr.  Calhoun  .  .  .  still  threatens  to  separate  South  Carolina 
from  the  confederacy,  if  she  is  not  suffered  to  remain  in  it  with 
the  privilege  of  a  veto  on  the  laws  of  the  Union. 

Webster: — Without  firmness,  consistency,  or  political  courage 
to  be  a  leader,  except  in  one  small  section  of  the  Union,  he  seems 
to  crow  to  any  good  purpose  only  on  his  own  dunghill,  and  is  a 
much  greater  fowl  in  his  own  barnyard  than  anywhere  else.  He 
is  a  good  speaker  at  the  bar  and  in  the  House;  but  he  is  a  much 
greater  lawyer  than  statesman,  and  far  more  expert  in  detailing 
old  arguments  than  fruitful  in  inventing  new  ones.  He  is  not 
what  we  should  call  a  great  man,  much  less  a  great  politician; 
and  we  should  go  so  far  as  to  question  the  power  of  his  intellect, 
did  it  not  occasionally  disclose  itself  in  a  rich  exuberance  of  con- 
tradictory opinions.  A  man  who  can  argue  so  well  on  both  sides 
of  a  question  cannot  be  totally  destitute  of  genius. 

And  here  these  three  gentlemen,  who  agree  in  no  one  single 
principle,  who  own  no  one  single  feeling  in  common,  except  that 
of  hatred  to  the  old  hero  of  New  Orleans,  stand  battling  side  by 
side.  The  author  and  champion  of  the  tariff,  and  the  man  who 
on  every  occasion  denounced  it  as  a  violation  of  the  Constitution; 


LEGGETT  ACTING  EDITOR  145 

the  oracle  of  nullification  and  the  oracle  of  consolidation ;  the  trio 
of  antipathies ;  the  union  of  contradiction ;  the  consistency  of  incon- 
sistencies; the  coalition  of  oil,  vinegar,  and  mustard;  the  dressing 
in  which  the  great  political  salad  is  to  be  served  up  to  the  people. 

In  this  aggressive  writing  we  see  Leggett's  pen;  and  it 
was  only  after  Bryant  left  the  Evening  Post  in  his  sole 
charge  that  It  entered  upon  Its  hottest  fighting.  The  first 
episode,  Its  defense  of  abolitionists  In  the  right  of  free 
speech,  was  highly  creditable  to  it. 

The  abolitionists  had  begun  to  arouse  popular  resent- 
ment In  New  York  so  early  as  1833;  on  Oct.  2  of  that 
year,  a  meeting  of  the  "friends  of  immediate  abolition" 
at  Clinton  Hall  had  been  broken  up  by  a  tumultuous 
crowd,  which  adjourned  to  Tammany  Hall  and  there  de- 
nounced the  agitators.  Lewis  Tappan,  head  of  one  of 
the  largest  silk  houses  In  the  city,  and  for  a  short  time 
after  1827  editor  of  the  Journal  of  Commerce;  his 
brother  Arthur  Tappan;  Joshua  Leavitt,  the  Rev.  Dr. 
F.  F.  Cox,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ludlow,  and  several  other 
Protestant  clergymen  made  up  a  constellation  only  less 
active  than  that  formed  In  Boston  by  William  Lloyd 
Garrison,  Wendell  Phillips,  Samuel  J.  May,  and  John 
Plerpont.  During  the  spring  of  1834  these  men  con- 
tinued their  speechmaking,  and  Ludlow  and  Cox  went 
so  far  as  to  appeal  to  all  Northern  negroes  for  support, 
and  to  defend  Intermarriage  between  whites  and  blacks- 
Few  New  Yorkers  then  regarded  Southern  slavery  as  a 
national  shame,  and  almost  none  had  any  patience  with 
abolition.  Most  of  the  press  denounced  the  movement 
emphatically;  the  Evening  Post  refused  to  do  this,  though 
It  called  It  wild  and  visionary. 

On  July  7  some  negroes  repaired  to  the  Chatham 
Street  Chapel  for  a  belated  celebration  of  the  Fourth, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  Sacred  Music  Society  met  there 
for  practice,  claiming  a  prior  right  of  occupancy.  Pa- 
triotism and  music  were  forgotten  in  the  ensuing  melee. 
The  Evening  Post  had  felt  that  trouble  was  brewing,  and 
it  raised  a  warning  voice : 

The  story  is  told  in  the  morning  papers  in  very  inflammatory 


146  THE  EVENING  POST 

language,  and  the  whole  blame  Is  cast  upon  the  negroes;  yet  it 
seems  to  us,  from  those  very  statements  themselves,  that,  as  usual, 
there  was  fault  on  both  sides,  and  especially  on  that  of  the  whites. 
It  seems  to  us,  also,  that  those  who  are  opposed  to  the  absurd 
and  mad  schemes  of  the  immediate  abolitionists,  use  means  against 
that  scheme  which  are  neither  just  nor  politic.  We  have  noticed 
a  great  many  tirades  of  late,  in  certain  prints,  the  object  of  which 
appears  to  be  to  excite  the  public  mind  to  strong  hostility  to  the 
negroes  generally,  and  to  the  devisers  of  the  immediate  emancipa- 
tion plan,  and  not  merely  to  the  particular  measure  represented. 
This  community  is  too  apt  to  run  into  excitements ;  and  those  who 
are  now  trying  to  get  up  an  excitement  against  the  negroes  will 
have  much  to  answer  for,  should  their  efforts  be  successful.  .  .  . 

Other  journals,  especially  the  Courier  and  Enquirer, 
continued  their  provocative  utterances  and  called  for 
public  meetings  to  protest  against  the  abolition  move- 
ment. The  result  was  that  disturbances  occurred  on  the 
night  of  Wednesday,  the  ninth,  and  reached  their  climax 
on  Friday  In  scenes  not  equaled  until  the  Draft  Riots, 
r  "At  an  hour  after  dark  on  Friday,  Lewis  Tappan's  store 
\    was   attacked  and  its  windows  were  broken.     At   ten 

t o'clock  the  mob  broke  in  the  doors  of  Dr.  Cox's  church 

on  Laight  Street,  and  demolished  Its  interior,  after  which 
it  made  a  rush  for  his  home  on  Charlton  Street,  but  found 
it  picketed  by  the  police  and  retired.  The  next  objective 
was  Mr.  Ludlow's  church  on  Spring  Street,  which  was 
half  demolished,  together  with  the  Session  House  next 
door.  Thereupon  the  rioters  made  for  the  principal 
negro  quarter  of  the  town,  in  the  region  about  Five 
Points.  The  Five  Points  has  figured  on  some  of  the 
blackest  pages  of  New  York's  history.  It  was  here  that 
fourteen  negroes  were  burned  In  1740  during  the  so-called 
Negro  Insurrection;  here  the  Seventh  Regiment  was 
called  out  in  1857  ^^  quell  a  riot;  here  the  "Dead  Rab- 
bits" later  fought  the  "Bowery  Boys,"  and  here  stood 
the  notorious  Old  Brewery  that  the  Five  Points  Mission 
displaced.  But  it  never  saw  more  panic  and  outrage  than 
on  that  night.  The  St.  Philip's  African  Episcopal  Church 
in  Centre  Street  and  a  negro  church  in  Anthony  Street 


LEGGETT  ACTING  EDITOR  147 

were  left  mere  battered  shells  by  the  mob ;  a  negro  school- 
house  In  Orange  Street  was  wrecked;  and  twenty  houses 
were  wholly  or  partly  destroyed,  and  much  of  the  contents 
stolen.  Innocent  negroes  were  beaten  into  unconscious- 
ness. The  colored  people  by  hundreds  fled  northward 
into  the  open  fields.  Just  before  midnight  infantry  and 
cavalry  arrived,  but  took  no  punitive  measures.  The 
Evening  Post  called  for  unremitting  severity: 

Let  them  be  fired  upon,  if  they  dare  collect  together  again  to 
prosecute  their  infamous  designs.  Let  those  who  make  the  first 
movement  toward  sedition  be  shot  down  like  dogs — and  thus  teach 
to  their  infatuated  followers  a  lesson  which  no  milder  course 
seems  sufficient  to  inculcate.  This  is  no  time  for  expostulation  or 
remonstrance.  .  .  .  We  would  recommend  that  the  whole  mili- 
tary force  of  the  city  be  called  out,  that  large  detachments  be 
stationed  wherever  any  ground  exists  to  anticipate  tumultuary 
movements,  that  smaller  bodies  patrol  the  streets  in  every  part  of 
the  city,  and  that  the  troops  be  directed  to  fire  upon  the  first  dis- 
orderly assemblage  that  refuses  to  disperse  at  the  bidding  of  law- 
ful authority. 

The  Posfs  uncompromising  stand  was  thoroughly  un- 
popular— unpopular  with  not  merely  the  ignorant,  but 
with  most  business  men.  A  Boston  journal  noted  that 
"the  EveningFost  was  the  only  daily  paper  in  that  city 
which  condemned  the  riots  with  manly  denunciation,  with- 
out a  single  sneering  allusion  to  the  abolitionists,  and  in 
return  for  this  manifestation  of  a  love  of  law  and  order, 
the  Courier  assailed  the  Post  as  a  promoter  of  the  plan 
of  parti-colored  amalgamation,  and  strongly  hinted  that 
the  mob  ought  to  direct  its  vengeance  against  that  office.'* 
This  was  true.  The  Courier  and  Enquirer  had  said  that 
Editor  Leggett,  who  had  dared  defend  the  vile  abolition- 
ists, richly  deserved  the  severest  castlgatlon  which  had 
been  planned  for  those  who  would  make  their  daughters 
the  paramours  of  the  negro. 

In  the  summer  of  1835  Leggett  showed  even  greater 
courage  upon  the  same  subject.  The  postmaster  of 
Charleston,  S.  C,  had  refused  to  deliver  abolitionist  let- 
ters and  documents  upon  the  ground  that  they  were  incen- 


^ 


H^  THE  EVENING  POST 

diary  and  insurrectionary,  and  on  Aug.  4   Postmaster- 
General  Kendall  upheld  him  in  a  letter  stating  that  by 
no  act  or  order  would  he  aid  in  giving  circulation  to 
documents  of  the  kind  barred.     It  must  be  remembered 
that  the  Evening  Post  had  thus  far  stood  by  Jackson's 
I        administration  in  every  particular.     It  must  also  be  re- 
j        membered  that  Leggett  at  this  time  thoroughly  disap- 
y     \       proved  of  the  abolition  movement  as  untimely  and  im- 
practicable.    But  he  saw  in  Kendall's  measure  a  bureau- 
cratic censorship  In  its  most  odious  and  arbitrary  form, 
and  he  called  the  action  an  outrage : 

Neither  the  general  postoffice,  nor  the  general  government  it- 
self, possesses  any  power  to  prohibit  the  transportation  by  mail  of 
abolition  tracts.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  bounden  duty  of  the 
government  to  protect  the  abolitionists  in  their  constitutional  right 
of  free  discussion ;  and  opposed,  sincerely  and  zealously  as  we  are, 
to  their  doctrinces  and  practices,  we  should  be  still  more  opposed 
to  any  infringement  of  their  political  or  civil  rights.  If  the  gov- 
ernment once  begins  to  discriminate  as  to  what  is  orthodox  and 
what  heterodox  in  opinion,  what  is  safe  and  what  unsafe  in 
tendency,  farewell,  a  long  farewell,  to  our  freedom. 

Only  three  of  the  really  influential  newspapers  of  the 
land  declined  to  admit  that  Kendall  had  either  done  right, 
or  had  simply  chosen  the  lesser  of  two  evils :  the  Boston 
Courier,  edited  by  J.  T.  Buckingham,  the  Cincinnati 
Gazette,  edited  by  Charles  Hammond,  and  the  Post. 

Unpopular  as  was  the  Evening  Post's  defense  of  free 
,  speech,  Its  stand  upon  financial  and  economic  questions 
was  far  more  heartily  detested.  It  rapidly  ceased,  after 
its  first  attacks  upon  the  Bank,  to  hold  its  old  position  as 
a  representative  of  the  city's  commercial  Interests.  It  is 
rue  that  some  rich  New  Yorkers  felt  a  jealousy  of  the 
Bank  because  it  belonged  to  Philadelphia,  while  others 
stood  loyally  with  the  Democratic  Party  in  denouncing  it. 
But  Gulian  Verplanck  and  Ogden  Hoffman,  close  friends 
of  the  Post,  were  typical  of  many  who  went  over  to  the 
Bank's  side.  Not  a  few  business  men  affiliated  with  Tam- 
many joined  the  ranks  of  Jackson's  enemies.     Historical 


^ 


LEGGETT  ACTING  EDITOR  149 

opinion  inclines  to  the  view  that  Jackson  did  not  have 
a  sufficient  case  against  the  Bank,  which  was  a  salutary 
institution,  and  certainly  New  York  commercial  circles 
believed  this.  A  majority  of  the  voters  were  with  Jack- 
son. Thurlow  Weed  told  a  friend  that  all  of  Webster's 
unanswerable  arguments  for  the  Bank  would  not  win  one- 
tenth  the  ballots  won  by  two  sentences  in  Jackson's  veto 
message  relating  to  European  stockholders  and  wicked 
special  privilege.  But  It  was  not  the  mass  of  poor  voters 
on  which  a  sixpenny  journal  like  the  Evening  Post  relied 
for  sustenance,  but  upon  the  professional  and  business 
men. 

Leggett's  cardinal  conviction,  expressed  with  a  fire  and 
energy  then  unequaled  In  journalism,  was  that  the  great 
enemy  of  democracy  Is  monopoly.  He  hated  and  assailed 
all  special  Incorporations,  for  In  those  days  they  usually 
carried  very  special  privileges.  Charters  were  obtained 
by  wire-pulling  and  legislative  corruption,  he  said,  to  put 
a  few  men,  as  the  ferry-owners  in  New  York  City,  in  a 
position  where  they  could  gouge  the  public.  He  wished 
banking  placed  upon  such  a  basis  that  legislative  Incor- 
poration, exclusive  in  nature,  would  not  be  needed.  He 
wanted  all  franchises  abolished,  and  would  have  forbid- 
den any  grant  to  a  company  of  the  exclusive  right  to  build 
a  turnpike,  canal,  railroad,  or  water-system  between  two 
given  points.  He  objected  even  to  the  incorporation  of 
colleges  and  churches,  quoting  Adam  Smith  to  show  that 
his  views  upon  this  head  were  less  eccentric  than  they 
seemed.  Joint  stock  partnerships,  he  believed,  would 
meet  all  business  necessities.  The  Legislature  should 
pass  one  general  law,  which  will  allow  any  set  of  men, 
who  choose  to  associate  together  for  any  purpose,  to  form 
themselves  into  that  convenient  kind  of  partnership 
known  by  the  name  of  incorporation";  so  that  any  group 
would  be  permitted  freely  to  form  an  Insurance  company, 
a  bank,  or  a  college  granting  degrees.  This,  of  course, 
would  not  exclude  governmental  supervision.  Although 
there  were  then  grave  abuses  in  monopolistic  incorpora- 
tion, Leggett  pushed  his  doctrine  quite  too  far, 


I50  THE  EVENING  POST 

Equality  was  Leggett's  watchword.  Those  were  the 
days  when  State  Legislatures  were  abolishing  the  last 
property  restrictions  upon  suffrage,  and  vitriolic  was  the 
wrath  which  the  Evening  Post  poured  upon  all  who  op- 
posed the  movement.  The  whole  period  it  pictured  as  a 
battle  between  men  and  money;  between  "silk-stocking, 
morocco-booted,  high-living,  white-gloved  gentlemen,  to 
be  tracked  only  by  the  marks  of  their  carriage  wheels," 
and  hardworking  freemen.  It  objected  to  the  theory  that 
the  state  was  an  aggregation  of  social  strata,  one  above 
the  other,  and  maintained  that  all  useful  citizens  should 
fare  alike.  Upon  the  word  "useful,"  in  Carlylean  vein, 
it  insisted,  for  they  must  be  "producers."  Tariffs,  inter- 
nal improvements  at  the  expense  of  State  and  nation,  and 
special  incorporations,  were  violations  of  equality;  while 
the  spirit  of  speculation  was  condemned  as  creating  a 
"paper  aristocracy."  On  Dec.  6,  1834,  Leggett  vindi- 
cated the  right  of  the  laboring  classes  to  unite  in  trade 
unions,  a  right  then  widely  denied.  It  is  clear  that  his 
ultra-democratic  crusade  was  essentially  an  accompani- 
ment of  the  rise  of  a  new  industrialism.  It  had  its  af- 
finities with  the  frontier  equalitarianism  personified  by 
Jackson,  but  Its  primary  aim  was  the  protection  of  the 
toiling  urban  masses. 

^  Leggett  was  upon  firm  ground  when  In  1835  he  began 
to  attack  the  inflation,  gambling,  and  business  unsound- 
ness of  which  every  day  afforded  fresh  proofs.  There 
was  grotesque  speculation  in  Southern  cotton  lands,  Maine 
timber.  New  York  and  Philadelphia  real  estate,  and  the 
Western  lands  enhanced  in  value  by  the  Erie  Canal. 
Capital  was  abundant,  prices  were  rising,  and  every  one 
seemed  to  be  getting  rich.  Most  Northern  States  were 
undertaking  costly  Internal  improvements  with  a  reck- 
less faith  in  the  future.  Leggett  looked  with  two-fold 
alarm  and  indignation  upon  the  flood  of  paper  money 
then  pouring  from  small  banks  all  over  the  country.  De- 
preciated paper,  in  the  first  place,  was  used  to  lower  the 
real  wages  of  mechanics;  in  the  second  place,  he  main- 
tained that  the  grant  to  State  banks  of  the  power  to  issue 


LEGGETT  ACTING  EDITOR  151 

bills  placed  the  measure  of  value  in  the  hands  of  specula- 
tors, to  be  extended  or  contracted  according  to  their  own 
selfish  wishes.  On  Dec.  24,  1834,  just  before  the  Legis- 
lature met,  the  Evening  Post  published  an  appeal  to  Gov. 
Marcy.  The  banknotes,  it  said,  were  driving  specie  out 
of  circulation,  and  causing  a  fever  of  reckless  speculation. 
"Already  our  merchants  are  importing  largely.  Stocks 
have  risen  in  value,  and  land  is  selling  at  extravagant 
rates.  Everything  begins  to  wear  the  highly-prosperous 
aspect  which  foretokens  commercial  revulsion."  It  rec- 
ommended that  the  State  should  forbid  the  issue  of  any 
banknotes  for  less  than  $5. 

"For  these  views,"  Leggett  wrote  in  March,  "we  have 
been  bitterly  reviled."  On  June  20,  1835,  the  Post  pub- 
lished a  striking  editorial  entitled  "Out  of  Debt,"  in  allu- 
sion to  the  current  boast  that  the  nation  owed  no  one. 
On  the  contrary,  it  stated,  the  people  "are  plunging 
deeper  and  deeper  into  the  bottomless  pit  of  unredeemed 
and  irredeemable  obligations."  It  estimated  that  the  six 
hundred  banks  of  the  nation  had  issued  paper  in  excess  of 
$200,000,000.  "Who  will  pay  the  piper  for  all  this 
political  and  speculative  dancing?"  The  panic  of  1837 
gave  the  answer. 

By  his  ringing  editorials,  written  day  after  day  at 
white  heat,  a  really  noble  series,  Leggett  became  the 
prophet  of  the  Loco-Foco  party,  which  arose  as  a  radical 
wing  of  the  New  York  Democracy  and  lived  only  two 
years,  1835-37.  The  origin  of  the  name  is  a  familiar 
story.  On  Oct.  25,  1835,  a  meeting  was  held  at  Tam- 
many Hall  to  nominate  a  Congressman ;  the  conservative 
Democrats  named  their  man  in  accordance  with  a  pre- 
arranged plan,  put  out  the  lights,  and  went  home;  the 
anti-monopoly  radicals  produced  tallow  candles  from  their 
pockets,  lit  them  with  loco-foco  matches,  and  nominated 
a  rival  candidate.  Leggett  was  not  an  active  politician. 
But  the  Loco-Foco  mass-meetings  of  the  two  ensuing 
years,  and  their  two  State  conventions,  enunciated  the 
same  equalitarian  doctrines  which  Leggett  had  begun  to 
preach  in  1834. 


152  THE  EVENING  POST 

Not  only  those  whose  interests  were  affected  by  Leg- 
gett's  anti-monopoly,  anti-speculation,  anti-aristocracy 
crusade,  but  many  other  staid,  moderate  men,  were  horri- 
fied by  it.  He  was  charged  with  Utopianism,  agrarianism, 
Fanny-Wrightism,  Jacobinism,  and  Jack  Cade-ism.  His 
writings  were  said  to  set  class  against  class,  and  to 
threaten  the  nation  with  anarchy.  Gov.  William  M. 
Marcy  called  Leggett  a  ''knave."  The  advance  of  the 
Loco-Foco  movement  was  likened  to  the  great  fire  and  the 
great  cholera  plague  of  these  years.  When  Chief  Justice 
Marshall  died  in  the  summer  of  1835,  Leggett  unspar- 
ingly assailed  him  and  Hamilton  as  men  who  had  tried  "to 
change  the  character  ~gf~  the"  government  from  popular 
to  monarchical,"  and  to  destroy  "the  great  principle  of 
human  liberty."  Marshall  was  regarded  by  most  prop- 
ertied New  Yorkers  as  the  very  sheet-anchor  of  the  Con- 
stitution, and  for  them  to  see  him  denounced  as  a  man  who 
had  always  strengthened  government  at  the  expense  of 
the  people  was  too  much.  Ex-Mayor  Philip  Hone  was 
handed  that  editorial  on  an  Albany  steamboat  by  Charles 
King,  and  dropped  the  journal  with  the  vehement  ejacula- 
tion, "Infamous!"  "This  is  absolutely  a  species  of  im- 
piety for  which  I  want  words  to  express  my  abhorrence," 
he  entered  in  his  diary. 

For  the  courage,  the  eloquence,  and  the  burning  sin- 
cerity of  Leggett's  brief  editorship  we  must  heartily  ad- 
mire him;  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that  he  made  the 
Evening  Post,  for  the  first  and  last  time  in  its  career, 
extravagant.  He  was  public-spirited  in  all  that  he  wrote ; 
his  prophecy  of  a  financial  crash  was  shrewd;  in  defend- 
ing the  abolitionists  against  persecution  he  was  in  advance 
of  his  generation;  and  his  comments  upon  many  minor 
questions  of  the  day  were  sound.  But  the  newspaper 
lacked  balance,  and  its  influence  was  perhaps  not  so  great 
as  when  Bryant  had  been  at  hand  to  exercise  a  restraint 
upon  Leggett.  Such  an  impetuous  man  could  not  spare 
his  own  health.  Almost  daily  the  Evening  Post  had  car- 
ried an  editorial  of  from  1,000  to  2,000  words.  On  Oct. 
15,    1835,   these  utterances  broke   abruptly   off,    and  it 


LEGGETT  ACTING  EDITOR  153 

became  known  that  Leggett  was  gravely  111  of  a  bilious 
fever.  His  place  was  temporarily  supplied  by  Theodore 
Sedgwick,  Jr.,  and  then  by  Charles  Mason,  an  able  lawyer 
of  the  city.  Bryant,  loitering  along  the  Rhine,  had  hastily 
to  be  recalled. 

Although  Leggett  had  boasted  the  previous  May  that 
the  Evening  Post  had  more  subscribers  than  ever  before 
and  an  undiminished  revenue  from  advertisements,  its 
condition  was  rapidly  declining  when  the  editor  fell  ill. 
For  this  there  were  a  number  of  reasons.  Leggett's 
radicalism  had  offended  many  sober  mercantile  adver- 
tisers. He,  like  some  other  editors,  had  objected  to 
blackening  the  newspaper's  pages  with  the  small  conven- 
tional cuts  of  ships  and  houses  used  to  draw  attention 
to  advertisements,  and  had  thereby  lost  patronage.  After 
the  death  of  Michael  Burnham,  in  the  summer  of  1835^ 
the  business  management  had  fallen  to  a  scamp  named 
Hanna,  who  was  generally  drunk  and  always  insolent. 
Warning  symptoms  of  the  approaching  panic  were  In  the 
air,  money  becoming  so  tight  late  in  1835  ^^^^  reputable 
mercantile  firms  could  not  discount  their  notes  a  year 
ahead  for  less  than  30  per  cent.  Leggett,  finally,  had 
offended  valuable  government  friends.  As  he  •wrote 
(Sept.  5,  1835): 

We  once  expressed  dislike  ...  of  the  undignified  tone  of  one 
of  Mr.  Woodberry's  official  letters,  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
to  Nicholas  Biddle ;  and  the  Treasury  advertisements  were  thence- 
forward withheld.  The  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  having  acted  with 
gross  partiality  in  regard  to  a  matter  recently  tried  by  a  naval 
court-martial,  we  had  the  temerity  to  censure  his  conduct;  and 
of  course  we  could  look  for  no  further  countenance  from  that 
quarter.  The  Navy  Commissioners,  being  Post-Captains,  .  .  . 
have  taken  in  high  dudgeon  our  inquiry  into  the  oppression  and 
tyranny  practised  by  their  order;  and  "stop  our  advertisements!" 
is  the  word  of  command  established  in  such  cases.  When  the 
Evening  Post  exposed  the  duplicity  of  Samuel  Swartwout,  the 
Collector  of  the  Port,  it  at  once  lost  all  further  support  from  the 
Custom  House.  And  now,  having  censured  the  doctrines  of  Mr. 
Kendall  and  the  practice  of  Mr.  Gouverneur,  the  postoffice  adver- 
tising is  withdrawn,  of  course. 


154  THE  EVENING  POST 


II 


While  Bryant  was  in  Europe,  while  the  Evening  Post 
in  the  spring  of  1835  was  beginning  its  abrupt  plunge 
toward  financial  disaster,  there  occurred  the  simultaneous 
birth  of  the  New  York  Herald  and  a  new  journalism. 
Its  immediate  effect  upon  the  Post  was  small;  its  effect 
in  the  long  run  upon  all  newspapers  was  profound.  It 
was  to  not  only  a  half-wrecked  Evening  Post,  but  to  revo- 
lutionized journalistic  conditions,  that  Bryant  returned 
from  Heidelberg. 

When  Bryant  and  Leggett  had  taken  full  charge  of  the 
Evening  Post  in  1829,  the  New  York  newspapers  were  a 
quarrelsome  group  of  sixpenny  dailies,  some  political, 
some  commercial,  and  in  their  news  features  all  slow, 
dull,  and  half-filled  by  modern  standards.  The  best- 
known  morning  journal  was  the  Courier  and  Enquirer, 
of  which  the  editor  and  after  a  year  the  sole  proprietor 
was  James  Watson  Webb,  a  rich,  hot-tempered,  exceed- 
ingly handsome  young  man  of  twenty-seven,  as  mercurial 
as  any  Southerner,  with  a  native  taste  for  fighting  which 
had  been  developed  by  his  West  Point  education  and  some 
years  in  the  army.  Webb  knew  the  use  of  the  sword, 
pistol,  and  cane  decidedly  better  than  that  of  the  pen. 
The  Evening  Post  well  characterized  him  as  "a  fussy, 
blustering,  quarrelsome  fellow."  He  repeatedly  assaulted 
fellow-editors  in  the  street;  he  repeatedly  journeyed  to 
Washington  or  Albany  to  tweak  somebody's  nose  or  ex- 
change shots;  and  while  our  envoy  to  Brazil  he  wanted 
to  kill  the  British  Minister  there.  When  in  the  early 
thirties  Congressman  Cilley  of  Maine  charged  him  with 
taking  a  bribe,  and  refused  to  accept  Webb's  challenge 
on  the  ground  that  the  latter  was  no  gentleman,  the  im- 
petuous editor  persuaded  his  second  to  challenge  and 
kill  Cilley.  Ten  years  later  Webb  provoked  Congressman 
Thomas  F.  Marshall,  of  Kentucky,  by  coarse  attacks,  into 
fighting  a  duel,  and  was  sentenced  to  two  years  in  the 
State  prison.     Greeley  and  many  others  of  note  signed 


LEGGETT  ACTING  EDITOR  155 

a  petition  for  a  pardon,  which  Bryant  indignantly  op- 
posed, but  Gov.  Seward  granted  it. 

Chief  among  the  Courier^s  morning  rivals  was  the 
Journal  of  Commerce,  founded  in  1827  as  an  advocate  of 
the  introduction  of  religion  into  business  affairs,  which 
went  into  the  hands  of  David  Hale  and  Gerard  Hallock 
after  the  abolitionist  silk  merchant,  Tappan,  gave  it  up. 
It  refused  to  advertise  theaters  and  other  amusement- 
places,  and  was  considered  a  little  fanatical,  but  it  showed 
extraordinary  enterprise  for  that  day  in  news-gathering. 
In  1828  it  stationed  a  swift  craft  off  Sandy  Hook  to  Inter- 
cept incoming  ships  and  bring  the  first  European  news  up 
the  harbor,  and  It  subsequently  arranged  a  relay  of  fast 
horses  from  Philadelphia  to  bring  the  Congressional  de- 
bates a  day  in  advance  of  Its  competitors.  Webb  followed 
the  example,  extending  the  pony  relay  to  Washington,  and 
spending  from  $15,000  to  $20,000  a  year  on  his  clipper 
boats.  Some  episodes  of  this  rivalry  are  amusing.  After 
the  fall  of  Warsaw  in  the  Polish  war,  the  Courier  and 
Enquirer,  to  punish  its  competitors  for  news-stealing, 
printed  a  small  edition  denying — upon  the  strength  of 
dispatches  by  the  ship  Ajax — the  reported  fall,  and  saw 
that  copies  reached  the  doorstep  of  all  morning  journals. 
There  was  no  such  arrival  as  the  Ajax.  Several  news- 
papers reprinted  the  bogus  news  without  credit,  the  Jour- 
nal of  Commerce  doing  so  In  its  country  but  not  its  city 
edition;  and  great  was  the  Courier's  sarcastic  glee. 

Though  Webb  was  too  explosive,  too  dissipated,  and 
too  slender  In  ability  to  be  a  great  editor,  he  had  the 
money  to  obtain  able  lieutenants.  One  was  the  Jewish 
journalist  M.  M.  Noah,  who  had  edited  the  National 
Advocate  In  Coleman's  day,  and  written  patriotic  dramas. 
In  1825,  conceiving  that  the  time  had  come  for  the  "res- 
toration of  the  Jews,"  Noah  had  appeared  at  Grand 
Island,  near  Buffalo,  In  the  insignia  of  one  of  the  Hebrew 
monarchs,  and  dedicated  It  as  the  future  Jerusalem  and 
capital  of  the  Jewish  nation,  calling  It  Ararat  in  honor 
of  the  original  Noah.  Disillusioned  In  this  project,  Noah 
bought  a  share  in  the  Courier  in  1831,  and  in  1832  re- 


156  THE  EVENING  POST 

signed  It.  Another  worker  on  the  Courier  was  Charles 
King;  James  K.  Paulding  contributed;  and  In  the  forties 
It  obtained  Henry  J.  Raymond's  services.  But  the  most 
notable  of  Its  writers  when  the  year  1829  ended  was  a 
smart  young  Scotchman  named  James  Gordon  Bennett, 
who,  after  knocking  about  from  Boston  to  Charleston  in 
various  employments — he  had  even  essayed  to  open  a 
commercial  school  In  New  York — had  made  a  shining  suc- 
cess In   1828   as  Washington  correspondent  for  Webb. 

Bennett,  at  this  time  highly  studious,  had  examined  in 
the  Congressional  Library  one  day  a  copy  of  Horace  Wal- 
pole's  letters,  and  at  once  began  to  imitate  them  In  his 
correspondence,  making  it  lively,  full  of  gossip,  and  even 
vulgarly  frank  in  descriptions  of  men  of  the  day.  Some 
Washington  ladles  were  said  to  be  Indebted  to  Bennett's 
glowing  pen-pictures  for  their  hosbands.  He  was  active 
In  other  capacities  for  the  journal — he  reported  the 
White-Crowlnshleld  murder  trial  In  Salem,  Mass.,  wrote 
editorials,  squibs,  and  amusing  articles  of  sorts;  and  Webb 
showed  how  fundamentally  lacking  he  was  in  editorial 
discernment  when  he  never  let  Bennett  receive  more  than 
$12  a  week.  In  1832  the  homely,  thrifty  youngster  from 
Banffshire  left  the  Courier. 

Others  among  the  eleven  dailies  were  the  Commercial 
Advertiser,  the  Daily  Advertiser,  and  the  Star,  the  last- 
named  being  the  Post's  closest  rival  In  evening  circula- 
tion. Much  attention  was  attracted  to  the  Daily  Adver- 
tiser in  1835  by  the  Washington  letters  of  Erastus 
Brooks,  a  young  man  who  wrote  as  brightly  as  Bennett 
but  more  soberly.  The  following  year  he  and  his  brother 
James  founded  the  Express,  also  a  sixpenny  paper,  which 
succeeded  against  heavy  obstacles.  Compared  with  Lon- 
don, the  New  York  field  was  overcrowded,  and  no  jour- 
nal had  many  subscribers;  the  Courier  was  vastly  proud 
when  it  printed  3,500  copies  a  day.  Newspapers  were 
sold  over  the  counter  at  the  place  of  publication,  and  at  a 
few  hotels  and  coffeehouses,  but  not  on  the  streets;  the 
first  employment  of  newsboys  excited  indignation,  and 
was  denounced  as  leading  them  into  vice.     Advertising 


LEGGETT  ACTING  EDITOR  157 

rates  continued  ridiculously  small.  The  Evening  Post 
and  its  contemporaries  still  made  the  time-honored  charge 
of  $40,  with  a  subscription  thrown  in,  for  Indefinite  space; 
the  first  insertion  of  a  ''square,"  8  to  16  lines,  cost  seven- 
ty-five cents,  the  second  and  third  twenty-five,  and  later 
insertions  eighteen  and  three-fourths  cents.  When  the 
daily  advertising  of  the  Courier  (apart  from  yearly  in- 
sertions) reached  $55,  that  sum  was  thought  remarkable. 

The  harbinger  of  the  new  journalism  was  Benjamin 
H.  Day,  a  former  compositor  for  the  Evening  Post,  who 
in  September,  1833,  began  Issuing  the  first  penny  news- 
paper with  sufficient  strength  to  survive,  the  Sun.  The 
idea  of  this  innovation  came  from  London,  which  had 
possessed  its  Illustrated  Penny  Magazine  since  1830, 
sold  In  huge  quantities  In  New  York  and  other  American 
cities;  Bryant  had  often  praised  It  as  an  Instrument  for 
educating  the  poor.  The  Sun  began  with  a  circulation  of 
300,  which  it  rapidly  Increased,  until  after  "the  publication 
of  the  famous  "moon  hoax"  In  1835  It  boasted  the  largest 
circulation  In  the  world;  three  years  later  It  distributed 
38,000  copies  daily.  Not  until  the  Civil  War  did  It  raise 
Its  price  above  one  cent,  and  it  continued  to  be  read  by 
the  poor  almost  exclusively.  It  was  not  a  political  force, 
for  It  voiced  no  energetic  editorial  opinions,  nor  was  it 
a  better  purveyor  of  Intelligence  than  Its  neighbors.  It 
showed  no  more  enterprise  In  news-collecting.  Its  corre- 
spondence was  Inferior,  and  Its  appeal,  apart  from  Its 
cheapness  and  special  features,  lay  In  its  great  volume  of 
help-wanted  advertisements. 

The  new  journalism  therefore  had  Its  real  beginning 
when,  on  May  6,  1835,  in  a  cellar  In  Wall  Street — not 
a  basement,  but  a  cellar — Rer|nptt  p^f-ab|j<thpH  the  Herald. 
He  had  fifteen  years'  experience,  five  hundred  dollars, 
two  chairs,  and  a  dry-goods  box.  It  also  was  a  penny 
paper.  But  its  distinction  rested  upon  the  fact  that  it 
embodied  four  original  Ideas  In  journalism.  The  first, 
and  most  important,  was  the  necessity  of  a  thorough 
search  for  all  the  news.    The  second  was  that  fixed  prin- 


158  THE  EVENING  POST 

ciples  are  dangerous,  and  that  It  is  most  profitable  to  be 
on  the  winning  side.    Bennett  felt  with  Hosea  Biglow  that 

A  merciful  Providence  fashioned  us  hollow 

In  order  thet  we  might  our  princerples  swallow. 

The  third  was  the  value  of  editorial  audacity — that  is, 
of  Impudence,  mockery,  and  Mephlstophelian  persiflage 
— for  Bennett  had  seen  In  Boston  that  the  saucy.  Indecor- 
ous Galaxy  had  been  universally  abused,  and  universally 
read.  The  fourth  idea  embodied  in  the  Herald  was  the 
value  of  audacity  In  the  news;  of  unconventlonality,  vul- 
garity, and  sensationalism. 

Above  all,  Bennett  gave  New  York  city  the  news,  with 
a  comprehensiveness,  promptness,  and  accuracy  till  then 
undreamed  of.  At  first,  compelled  by  poverty  to  do  all 
the  work  himself,  and  unable  to  hire  his  first  reporter  for 
more  than  three  months,  he  found  the  task  hard.  But 
within  five  weeks  (June  13)  he  began  publishing  a  daily 
financial  article,  something  that  Bryant,  Col.  Stone,  Webb, 
and  Hallock  had  not  thought  of,  although  thousands 
were  just  as  keenly  interested  In  the  exchange  then  as 
now.  From  one  to  four  every  business  afternoon,  having 
labored  In  his  cellar  since  five  in  the  morning,  Bennett  was 
making  the  rounds  of  the  business  offices,  collecting  stock- 
tables  and  gossip.  Local  intelligence  began  to  be  thor- 
oughly gathered.  Incomparably  the  best  reports  of  the 
great  fire  of  December,  1835,  are  to  be  found  in  the 
Herald.  He  was  the  first  editor  to  open  a  bureau  of 
foreign  correspondence  in  Europe,  something  that  Bryant 
might  well  have  done.  He  soon  went  the  Courier  and 
Journal  of  Commerce  one  better  by  keeping  his  clipper 
off  Montauk  Point,  and  running  a  special  train  the  length 
of  Long  Island  with  the  European  newspapers.  A  Herald 
reporter,  notebook  in  hand,  began  to  be  seen  in  precincts 
which  had  never  known  a  journalist.  In  1839  Bennett 
made  bold  to  report  the  proceedings  of  church  sects  at 
their  annual  meetings,  and  though  the  denominational 
officers  were  at  first  Indignant,  they  became  mollified  when 
they  saw  their  names  in  print.    Important  trials  were  for 


LEGGETT  ACTING  EDITOR  159 

the  first  time  followed  in  detail,  and  Important  public 
speeches  reproduced  In  their  entirety.  The  Interview  was 
invented. 

This  "picture  of  the  world"  was  served  up  with  a 
sauce.  Bennett  had  no  reverence  and  no  taste.  He  an- 
nounced his  own  forthcoming  marriage  In  1840  in  appal- 
ling headlines :  "To  the  Readers  of  the  Herald — Declara- 
tion of  Love — Caught  at  Last — Going  to  be  Married- — 
New  Movement  In  Civilization."  The. Herald  was  not 
a  year  old  before  it  was  ridiculing  republican  Institutions, 
and  in  shocking  terms  assailing  the  Catholic  Church, 
the  Pope,  and  the  doctrine  of  transubstantlatlon.  When 
the  Erie  Railroad  began  its  infamous  early  career,  Bryant 
attacked  the  schemes  of  the  speculators  with  great  effect, 
and  helped  stop  the  first  effort  of  the  promoters  to  sack 
the  State  treasury.  The  Herald^s  comment  was  brief 
and  characteristic:  "The  New  York  and  Erie  Railroad 
is  to  break  ground  in  a  few  days.  We  hope  they  will 
break  nothing  else."  James  Parton  quotes  one  of  Ben- 
nett's Impudent  paragraphs  as  representative.  "Great 
trouble  among  the  Presbyterians  just  now.  The  question 
in  dispute  Is,  whether  or  not  a  man  can  do  anything  to- 
ward saving  his  own  soul."  In  even  the  few  and  brief 
book-notices  this  tone  was  maintained.  Reviewing  an 
Annual  Register  which  told  him  that  there  were  1,492 
rogues  in  the  State  Prison,  Bennett  added:  "And  God 
only  knows  how  many  out  of  prison,  preying  upon  the 
community,  in  the  shape  of  gamblers,  blacklegs,  specula- 
tors, and  politicians." 

By  the  prominence  It  gave  to  crimes  of  violence,  di- 
vorces, and  seduction,  and  by  its  bold  personal  gossip, 
the  Herald  fully  earned  the  name  of  a  "sensation  jour- 
nal." Most  of  the  other  newspapers,  the  magazines,  and 
the  Catholic  and  Protestant  pulpits,  denounced  It  roundly. 
The  Evening  Post  did  not  mention  It  by  name,  but  in  1839 
condemned  "the  nauseous  practice  which  some  of  our 
journals  have  imitated  from  the  London  press  of  adopting 
a  light  and  profligate  tone  in  the  daily  reports  of  in- 
stances of  crime,  depravity,  and  intemperance  which  fall 


i6o  THE  EVENING  POST 

under  the  eye  of  our  municipal  police,  making  them  the 
subject  of  elaborate  witticisms,  and  spicing  them  with  gross 
allusions."  The  Herald's  cynical  contempt  for  consistent 
principles  increased  the  dislike  with  which  it  was  viewed. 
In  general  it  was  Hunker  Democratic,  and  built  up  a 
large  Southern  following,  but  It  supported  Harrison  In 
1840  and  Taylor  in  1848.  The  English  traveler,  Edward 
Dicey,  said  that  it  had  but  two  standing  rules,  one  to 
support  the  existing  Administration,  the  other  to  attack 
the  land  of  Bennett's  birth.  Dicey  found  that  as  late 
as  Civil  War  times  Bennett  was  barred  from  society,  and 
that  when  he  went  to  stay  at  a  watering  place  near  New 
York,  the  other  guests  at  the  hotel  told  the  landlord  that 
he  must  choose  between  the  editor's  patronage  and  their 
own — and  Bennett  left. 

But  upon  Bennett's  success  was  largely  founded  that 
of  other  great  morning  newspapers  of  the  next  decades. 
*'It  would  be  worth  my  while,  sir,  to  give  a  million  dol- 
lars," said  Henry  J.  Raymond,  "If  the  devil  would  come 
and  tell  me  every  evening,  as  he  does  Bennett,  what  the 
people  of  New  York  would  like  to  read  about  next  morn- 
ing." The  Stm  was  given  new  life  when  It  passed  into 
the  hands  of  Moses  Y.  Beach  In  1838.  Greeley,  with  a 
capital  of  $1,000,  founded  the  Tribune  In  April,  1841, 
to  meet  the  need  for  a  penny  paper  of  Whig  allegiance. 
The  sixpenny  journals,  the  Evening  Post,  Commercial 
Advertiser,  Courier,  Journal  of  Commerce,  and  Express, 
perforce  learned  much  from  the  Herald  about  news-gath- 
ering. Years  later  the  Evening  Post  described  the  new 
spirit  of  enterprise  which  had  seized  upon  journalism  by 
the  early  forties: 

In  those  days  expresses  were  run  on  election  nights,  and  in  times 
of  great  excitement  the  Herald  and  Tribune  raced  locomotive 
engines  against  each  other  in  order  to  get  the  earliest  news;  on 
one  occasion,  we  remember,  the  sharp  reporter  engaged  for  the 
Tribune  "appropriating"  an  engine  which  was  waiting,  under 
steam,  for  the  use  of  the  opposition  agent,  and  so  beating  the 
Herald  at  its  own  game.  .  .  .  Nor  was  the  competition  confined 
to  enterprises  like  these.    For  want  of  the  boundless  facilities  now 


LEGGETT  ACTING  EDITOR  i6i 

afforded  by  the  organized  enterprises  of  the  newspaper  offices, 
there  were  curious  experiments  in  unexpected  directions ;  type  was 
set  on  board  of  North  River  steamboats  by  corps  of  printers,  who 
had  a  speech  ready  for  the  press  in  New  York  soon  after  its  deliv- 
ery in  Albany;  carrier  pigeons,  carefully  trained,  flew  from  Hali- 
fax or  Boston  with  the  latest  news  from  Europe  tucked  under 
their  wings,  and  delivered  their  charge  to  their  trainer  in  his  room 
near  Wall  Street;  an  adventurous  person,  known  at  the  time  by 
the  mysterious  title  of  "the  man  in  the  glazed  cap,"  made  a  voy- 
age across  the  Atlantic  in  a  common  pilot  boat  twenty  years  ago, 
secretly  and  with  only  three  or  four  companions,  in  the  interest 
of  two  or  three  journals  which  determined  to  "beat"  the  others 
in  their  arrangements  for  obtaining  early  news  from  abroad. 

Charles  H.  Levermore  twenty  years  ago  expressed  re- 
gret in  the  American  Historical  Review  that  the  revolu- 
tion in  journalism  had  been  wrought  by  the  unprincipled 
Bennett,  and  not  by  a  man  of  such  education,  taste,  and 
high-mlndedness  as  Bryant,  whose  name  would  assure 
the  standards  of  his  newspaper.  The  best  journalist  and 
worst  editor  in  the  country,  Parton  called  Bennett,  deplor- 
ing the  fact  that  during  the  Civil  War  neither  the  Times, 
Tribune  nor  World  could  reduce  the  "bad,  good  Herald,'^ 
which  Lincoln  read,  to  a  second  rank.  Parke  Godwin, 
writing  upon  Bennett's  death  In  1872  In  the  Evening 
Post,  refused  him  the  title  of  a  great  journalist  even, 
stating  that  he  was  a  great  news-vender.  "What  he  said 
from  day  to  day  was  said  merely  to  produce  a  sensation, 
to  raise  a  laugh,  or  to  confirm  a  vulgar  prejudice;  and  so 
far  as  he  had  any  Influence  at  all  as  a  writer,  it  was  one 
that  debased  and  corrupted  the  community  in  which  his 
paper  was  read.  He  did  more  to  vulgarize  the  tone  of 
the  press  In  this  country  than  any  man  ever  before  con- 
nected with  it;  and  the  worst  caricatures  that  the  genius 
of  Balzac,  Dickens,  and  Thackeray  has  given  us  of  the 
low,  slang-whanging,  dissolute,  and  unprincipled  Bohe- 
mian, of  the  Lousteaus,  Jefferson  Bricks,  and  Capt.  Shan- 
dons  of  the  journalistic  profession,  fall  to  depict  what 
Bennett  actually  was."  But  his  journal  was  read  as  no 
other  had  been.     Men  concealed  it  when  they  saw  a 


1 62  THE  EVENING  POST 

friend  approaching  it,  but  they  bought  it  and  examined 
every  column. 

Bryant  had  neither  the  necessary  inclinations  nor  apti- 
tudes to  accomplish  such  a  revolution.  When  he  started 
home  from  Germany  he  left  his  family  there,  meaning 
soon  to  return.  Upon  learning  how  straitened  was  the 
condition  of  the  Evening  Post,  he  became  temporarily  dis- 
heartened. Within  two  months  he  wrote  Dana  that  he 
earnestly  hoped  that  "the  day  will  come  when  I  may 
retire  without  danger  of  starving,  and  give  myself  to 
occupations  that  I  like  better."  Near  the  end  of  the  year 
he  informed  his  brother  John  in  Illinois  that  he  thought 
of  removing  thither  with  $3,ooo-$5,ooo  for  a  new  home. 
The  best  journalist  Is  not  m^de  from  a  man  who  is  thus 
lukewarm  In  his  work.  Moreover,  even  had  Bryant 
thrown  himself  heart  and  soul  into  his  calling,  his  literary 
tastes,  his  retiring  temper,  his  keen  sense  of  dignity,  his 
fame  as  a  poet,  would  have  prevented  his  breaking  new 
ground  as  Bennett  did.  He  had  no  equal  before  Greeley, 
and  no  superior  later,  in  writing  editorials,  and  he  made 
the  Intellectual  influence  of  the  Evening  Post  one  of  the 
strongest  in  the  nation.  He  was  a  great  editor.  But  he 
could  not  have  gone  down  Into  the  busy  'Change  with  his 
pencil  as  Bennett  did;  he  could  not  have  attended  meet- 
ings, visited  theaters,  and  mingled  with  common  men  in 
offices  and  on  street  corners,  with  Bennett's  constancy 
of  purpose. 

The  Evening  Post  had  as  much  news  as  some  sixpenny 
rivals,  but  it  sadly  needed  the  Herald's  stimulus.  Its  re- 
ports of  the  great  fire  of  1835  were  partly  original, 
partly  taken  from  the  Express.  When  the  Astor 
House  was  opened  the  following  summer,  an  exciting 
event.  It  clipped  its  report  from  the  Daily  Advertiser — 
and  even  the  latter  had  but  one  meager  paragraph. 
Probably  the  most  striking  instance  of  its  deficiency  oc- 
curred in  December,  1829,  the  month  that  Chancellor 
Lansing  disappeared  from  the  city  streets — the  greatest 
mystery  of  the  kind  in  New  York  political  history.  The 
Post's  only  account  was  left  by  Lansing's  friends : 


LEGGETT  ACTING  EDITOR  163 

Notice. — On  Saturday  evening,  the  12th  instant,  Chancellor 
Lansing,  of  Albany,  arrived  in  this  city,  and  put  up  at  the  City 
Hotel ;  he  breakfasted  and  dined  there.  Shortly  after  dinner  he 
retired  to  his  room  and  wrote  for  a  short  time,  and  about  the  hour 
that  the  persons  intending  to  go  to  Albany  usually  leave  the  Hotel, 
he  was  observed  to  leave  his  room.  He  has  not  been  seen  or 
heard  of  since  that  time.  He  left  his  trunk,  cane,  etc.,  in  his 
room.  His  friends  in  this  city  have  heard  this  morning  from 
Albany  that  he  has  not  returned  home. 

It  is  supposed  that  he  had  written  a  letter  to  Albany  and  that 
he  had  intended  to  put  it  on  board  the  steamboat  that  left  here  for 
that  place  at  five  o'clock  that  afternoon.  He  had  made  an  engage- 
ment to  take  tea  at  six  o'clock  that  evening  with  Mr.  Robert 
Ray,  of  this  city,  who  resides  at  No.  29  Marketfield  Street. 

He  was  dressed  in  black,  and  wore  powder  in  his  hair.  He 
was  a  man  of  a  large  and  muscular  frame  of  body,  and  about  five 
feet  nine  inches  in  height.  He  was  upwards  of  seventy-six  years 
of  age.  He  was  in  good  health,  and  has  never  been  known  to 
have  been  affected  by  any  mental  aberration.  Any  intelligence 
concerning  him  will  be  most  gratefully  acknowledged  by  his 
afflicted  friends  and  family,  if  left  for  them,  at  the  bar  of  the 
City  Hotel. 

No  effort  whatever  was  made  to  push  an  inquiry  Into 
this  mystery,  which  a  generation  later  would  have  made 
the  press  ring  for  weeks. 

Ill 

Bryant  resumed  his  editorial  chair  In  the  Pine  Street 
office  on  Feb.  16,  1836,  and  set  heroically  to  work  to 
restore  the  Evening  Post.  The  net  profits  that  year  fell 
to  $5,671.15,  and  In  the  panic  year  follov^Ing  to  $3,242.- 
76.  Leggett  was  only  slowly  convalescing  at  his  New 
Rochelle  home,  and  the  editor  was  assisted  by  Mason 
till  the  end  of  May,  when  he  obtained  the  services  of 
Henry  J.  Anderson,  professor  of  mathematics  at  Colum- 
bia. He  took  a  large  furnished  room  on  Fourth  Street, 
and  was  accustomed  to  be  In  his  office  at  seven  o'clock 
In  the  morning.  There  was  no  money  to  hire  many  help- 
ers, and  until  1840  three  men  did  practically  all  the  writ- 
ing. Bryant  wrote  the  editorials  and  literary  notices; 
his  chief  assistant,  first  Anderson  and  then  Parke  God- 


1 64  THE  EVENING  POST 

win,  clipped  exchanges,  furnished  dramatic  criticism,  and 
contributed  short  editorial  paragraphs;  and  another  man 
acted  as  general  reporter.  Ship  news  was  gathered  by 
pilots  in  the  common  employ  of  the  evening  papers. 

Yet  in  this  moment  of  adversity  occurred  one  of  those 
displays  of  liberalism  and  enlightened  judgment  which 
are  the  special  glory  of  the  Evening  Post.  After  Leg- 
gett's  illness,  Theodore  Sedgwick,  Jr.,  had  written  an 
editorial  (Nov.  14,  1835)  arguing  against  the  attitude  of 
condemnation  which  nearly  all  employers  then  took  to- 
ward labor  unions,  which  were  just  beginning  to  find  im- 
perfect shape.  He  affirmed  that  the  whole  body  social 
was  interested  in  promoting  the  objects  of  these  unions — 
in  diminishing  the  hours  of  labor  and  increasing  the  wages 
of  the  mechanics.  The  laboring  masses,  under  the  prin- 
ciple of  universal  suffrage,  held  the  government  in  their 
hands,  and  would  exercise  their  power  wisely  only  if  they 
had  education  and  prosperity.  This  was  not  the  case: 
''compelled  to  labor  the  extremest  amount  that  nature  can 
endure,  and  receiving  for  that  excessive  labor  a  compen- 
sation which  makes  year  after  year  of  excessive  toil  nec- 
essary to  obtain  independence,  what  leisure  have  they  to 
devote  to  the  acquisition  of  .  .  .  knowledge  ...?'* 
Bryant  felt  precisely  as  Leggett  and  Sedgwick  did  on  this 
subject.  At  the  end  of  May,  1836,  twenty-one  journey- 
men tailors  who  had  formed  a  union  were  indicted  for  a 
conspiracy  injurious  to  trade  and  commerce,  and  after  a 
three  days'  trial  in  the  court  of  Oyer  and  Terminer,  Judge 
Edwards  charged  the  jury  to  find  them  guilty.  Bryant 
immediately  (May  31)  attacked  him: 

We  do  not  admit,  until  we  have  further  examined  the  question, 
that  the  law  is  as  laid  down  by  the  Judge ;  but  if  it  be,  the  sooner 
such  a  tyrannical  and  wicked  law  is  abrogated  the  better.  His 
doctrine  has.  it  is  true,  a  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  its 
favor;  but  the  reasoning  by  which  he  attempts  to  show  the  pro- 
priety of  that  decision  is  of  the  weakest  possible  texture.  The 
idea  that  arrangements  and  combinations  for  certain  rates  of 
wages  are  injurious  to  trade  and  commerce,  is  as  absurd  as  the 


LEGGETT  ACTING  EDITOR  165 

idea  that  the  current  prices  of  the  markets,  which  are  always  the 
result  of  understandings  and  combinations,  are  injurious. 

The  next  day  the  tailors  were  heavily  fined.  The 
Evening  Post,  declaring  this  monstrous,  showed  its 
wicked  absurdity  in  a  series  of  clear  expositions.  It  had 
been  made  criminal  for  the  working  classes  to  settle 
among  themselves  the  price  of  their  own  property !  Ac- 
cording to  Judge  Edwards,  the  owners  of  the  packets, 
who  had  agreed  upon  $140  as  the  standard  fare  to  Liver- 
pool, were  criminals;  so  were  the  editors,  who  had  agreed 
upon  $10  for  a  yearly  subscription;  so  were  the  butchers 
and  bakers.  The  very  price  current  was  evidence  of 
conspiracy.  Bryant  recalled  the  fact  that  in  England 
the  Tories  themselves  had  expunged  the  laws  against 
labor  unions  from  the  statute  books  twelve  years  before. 
*'Can  anything  be  imagined  more  abhorrent  to  every  sen- 
timent of  generosity  and  justice,  than  the  law  which 
arms  the  rich  with  the  legal  right  to  fix,  by  assize,  the 
wages  of  the  poor?  If  this  is  not  slavery,  we  have  for- 
gotten its  definition.  Strike  the  right  of  associating  for 
the  sale  of  labor  from  the  privileges  of  a  freeman,  and 
you  may  as  well  bind  him  to  a  master,  or  ascribe  him  to 
the  soil." 

Other  newspapers,  of  which  the  Journal  of  Commerce 
and  the  American  were  the  most  prominent,  took  the  side 
of  Judge  Edwards.  For  a  time  the  excitement  was  in- 
tense. A  mass-meeting  of  mechanics,  which  the  Evening 
Post  declared  the  largest  ever  seen  in  the  city,  was  held 
in  City  Hall  Park  on  the  evening  of  June  13 ;  and  Bryant 
continued  his  editorials  at  intervals  for  a  month. 


CHAPTER  SEVEN 

THE  RISE  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION;  THE  MEXICAN  WAR 

Bryant's  real  editorial  career  dates  from  1836,  for  all 
that  had  preceded  was  mere  preparation.  He  quickly 
mastered  his  first  discouragement,  and  throwing  aside  the 
Idea  of  becoming  an  Illinois  farmer  or  lawyer,  devoted 
himself  to  the  Evening  Post  as  the  work,  poetry  apart, 
of  his  life.  We  catch  a  new  and  determined  note  in  his 
letters  by  1837,  when  he  was  laboring  like  a  born  jour- 
nalist at  his  desk  from  seven  to  four  daily,  and,  says  his 
assistant,  was  so  impatient  of  interruption  that  he  often 
seemed  irascible.  He  was  so  fully  occupied,  he  wrote 
Dana  in  February,  "that  if  there  is  anything  of  the  Pega- 
sus In  me,  I  am  too  much  exhausted  to  use  my  wings."  In 
an  unpublished  note  to  his  wife,  who  had  returned  in  the 
fall  of  1836,  he  declared:  "I  have  enough  to  do,  both  with 
the  business  part  of  the  paper  and  the  management  of  it 
as  editor,  to  keep  me  constantly  busy.  I  must  see  that 
the  Evening  Post  does  not  suffer  by  these  hard  times,  and 
I  must  take  that  part  in  the  great  controversies  now 
going  on  which  is  expected  of  it." 

He  still  longed  for  literary  leisure.  But  he  coura- 
geously stuck  to  his  post,  writing  Dana  in  June,  1838,  that 
his  editorial  labors  were  as  heavy  as  he  could  endure 
with  a  proper  regard  to  his  health,  and  that  he  managed 
to  maintain  his  strength  only  by  the  greatest  simplicity 
of  diet,  renouncing  tea,  coffee,  and  animal  food,  and  by 
frequent  walks  of  a  half  day  to  two  days  in  the  country. 
By  this  date,  he  said,  he  could  look  back  rejoicing  that 
he  had  never  yielded  to  the  temptation  of  giving  up  the 
newspaper. 

Leggett  did  not  return.  He  had  borrowed  so  much 
of  Mrs.  Coleman's  part  of  the  dividend  in  the  last  year 
of  his  connection  with  the  paper  that  she  compelled  him, 

166 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  167 

by  legal  steps,  to  surrender  his  third  share  of  the  Evening 
Post  to  her;  and  Bryant  would  not  give  him  that  freedom 
for  vehement  writing  which  he  wished.  In  December, 
1836,  he  established  the  Plaindealer,  a  short-lived  weekly 
to  which  the  Evening  Post  made  many  complimentary 
references.  But  his  health  continued  bad,  and  on  May  29, 
1839,  just  after  President  Van  Buren  had  offered  him 
the  post  of  confidential  agent  in  Central  America  in  the 
belief  that  a  sea  voyage  would  benefit  him,  he  died. 

His  place  was  supplied  in  part  by  chance.  During  the 
summer  of  1836  Parke  Godwin,  a  briefless  barrister  of 
only  twenty,  a  graduate  of  Princeton,  was  compelled  to 
remove  to  a  cheaper  boarding-house,  and  went  to  one 
at  316  Fourth  Street,  kept  by  a  native  of  Great  Barring- 
ton,  Mass.  He  was  introduced  one  evening  to  a  new- 
comer, a  middle-aged  man  of  medium  height,  spare  figure, 
and  clean-shaven,  severe  face.  His  gentle  manner,  pure 
English,  and  musical  voice  were  as  distinctive  as  his  large 
head  and  bright  eyes.  "A  certain  air  of  abstractedness 
made  you  set  him  down  as  a  scholar  whose  thoughts  were 
wandering  away  to  his  books;  and  yet  the  deep  lines 
about  his  mouth  told  of  struggle  either  with  himself  or 
with  the  world.  No  one  would  have  supposed  that  there 
was  any  fun  in  him,  but,  when  a  lively  turn  was  given 
to  some  remark,  the  upper  part  of  his  face,  particularly 
the  eyes,  gleamed  with  a  singular  radiance,  and  a  short, 
quick,  staccato,  but  hearty  laugh  acknowledged  the  hu- 
morous perception."  •  On  public  affairs  this  stranger  spoke 
with  keen  insight  and  great  decision.  That  evening  God- 
win was  told  that  he  was  the  poet  Bryant.  For  some 
months,  till  after  Mrs.  Bryant's  return,  the  two  were 
thrown  much  together,  without  increasing  their  acquaint- 
ance. Bryant's  greeting  to  strangers  was  chilly,  he  never 
prolonged  a  conversation,  he  was  fond  of  solitary  walks, 
and  he  spent  his  evenings  alone  in  his  room.  Godwin 
was  therefore  much  surprised  when  one  day  the  editor 
remarked:  '*My  assistant,  Mr.  Ulshoeffer,  is  going  to 
Cuba  for  his  health;  how  would  you  like  to  take  his 
place?"    The  young  lawyer,  after  demurring  that  he  had 


i68  THE  EVENING  POST 

had  no  experience,  went  to  try  it — and  stayed,  with  in- 
termissions, more  than  forty  years. 

"Every  editorial  of  Bryant's  opens  with  a  stale  joke 
and  closes  with  a  fresh  lie,"  growled  a  Whig  in  these 
years.  It  was  part  of  the  change  from  Leggett's  slashing 
directness  to  Bryant's  suavity  that  the  latter  prefaced 
most  political  articles  with  an  apposite  illustration  drawn 
from  his  wide  reading.  When  the  Albany  Journal, 
Thurlow  Weed's  newspaper,  was  arguing  the  self-evident 
proposition  that  the  State  should  not  buy  the  Ithaca  & 
Oswego  Railway,  he  told  the  story  of  the  perspiring  attor- 
ney who  was  interrupted  by  the  judge  in  a  long  harangue : 
"Brother  Plowden,  why  do  you  labor  so?  The  Court 
is  with  you."  The  effrontery  of  a  Whig  politician  caught 
in  a  bit  of  rascality  inspired  an  editorial  which  opened 
with  the  grave  plea  of  a  thievish  Indian  at  the  bar: 
"Yes,  I  stole  the  powder  horn,  but  it  is  white  man's  law 
that  you  must  prove  it."  Again,  with  more  dignity, 
Bryant  began  an  article  on  the  Bank  with  a  reference  to 
Virgil's  episode  of  Nisus  and  Euryalus. 

In  1839  Webster's  friends  professed  great  indignation 
because  the  orator  had  been  called  a  "myrmidon."  The 
myrmidons,  Bryant  remarked,  were  soldiers  who  fought 
under  Achilles  at  Troy,  and  the  opprobrium  of  being 
called  one  was  much  that  of  being  called  a  hussar  or 
lancer.  The  wrath  of  Webster's  defenders  seemed  to 
him  like  Dame  Quickly's: 

Falstaff:   "Go  to,  you  are  a  woman,  go." 

Hostess:  "Who,  I?  I  defy  thee,  I  was  never  called  so  in  mine 
own  house  before." 

But,  he  added,  there  was  one  important  difference  between 
Webster  and  a  myrmidon.  He  had  never  heard  of  the 
high-tariff  friends  of  a  myrmidon  making  up  a  purse  of 
$65,000  for  services  well  done.  Bryant  was  always  mas- 
ter of  a  grave  humor.  When  another  journal  assailed 
him,  he  wrote:  "There  is  an  honest  shoemaker  living  on 
the  Mergellina,   at  Naples,  on  the  right  hand  as  you 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  169 

go  towards  Pozzioli,  whose  little  dog  comes  out  every 
morning  and  barks  at  Vesuvius." 

Bryant    had    need    of    this    persuasive    tact,    for    in 

1836  the  following  of  the  Evening  Post  consisted  chiefly 
of  workmen,  who  could  not  buy  it,  and  of  the 
young  enthusiasts  who  polled  a  city  vote  of  only  2,712 
that  fall  for  the  Loco-Foco  ticket.  The  policy  was  not 
changed.  The  paper  continued  to  attack  special  bank- 
ing incorporations,  and  in  1838  had  the  satisfaction  of 
seeing  a  general  State  banking  law  passed. '""It  kept  up 
its  fire  against  the  judicial  doctrine  that  trade  unions  were 
conspiracies  against  trade,  and  sa\v  it  rapidly  disintegrate 
and  vanish.  During  1837  it  was  able^  to  point  to  the 
panic  as  an  exact  fulfillment  of  its  predictions.  By  1840 
it  was  clear  that  it  had  said  not  a  word  too  much  when 
it  attacked  the  craze  for  State  internal  improvements  as 
not  only  making  for  political  corruption  and  favoritism 
between  localities,  but  as  leading  to  financial  ruin.  Gov. 
Seward  that  year  declared  that  New  York  had  been 
misled  into  a  number  of  impractical  and  profitless  pro- 
jects. Gov.  Grayson  of  Maryland  called  for  heavy  direct 
taxes  as  the  only  means  of  averting  disgraceful  bank- 
ruptcy, and  Gov.  Porter,  of  Pennsylvania,  said  that  his 
State  had  been  loaded  with  a  multitude  of  undertakings 
that  it  could  neither  prosecute,  sell,  nor  abandon.  This 
proved  its  old  contention,  said  the  Post,  that  ''the  moment 
we  admit  that  the  Legislature  may  engage  in  local  enter- 
prises, it  is  beset  at  once  by  swarms  of  schemers."     In 

1837  Bryant  asked  for  the  repeal  of  the  usury  laws,  but 
in  this  he  was  not  years,  but  generations,  ahead  of  his 
time. 

As  a  personal  friend  of  Van  Buren,  Bryant  had  been 
among  the  first  to  applaud  the  movement  for  his  nomina- 
tion, and  he  warmly  championed  him  throughout  the 
campaign  of  1836.  At  the  South  the  Evening  Post  was 
for  some  time  declared  to  be  Little  Van's  chosen  organ 
for  addressing  the  public,  much  to  the  President's  em- 
barrassment; for  the  Posfs  views  on  the  growing  anti- 
slavery  movement  were  not  his.     Van  Buren's  greatest 


lyo  THE  EVENING  POST 

measure,  the  sub-treasury  plan,  was  stubbornly  opposed 
by  the  bankers  and  most  other  representatives  of  capital 
in  New  York.  It  ended  the  distribution  of  national  mon- 
eys among  the  State  banks,  where  Federal  funds  had  been 
kept  since  1833,  and  it  was  a  terrible  blow  to  them.  The 
Evening  Post  had  consistently  stood  for  a  divorce  of 
the  government  and  the  banks,  and  it  supported  the  sub- 
treasury  scheme  through  all  its  vicissitudes.  It  had  al- 
ways opposed  the  division  of  the  surplus  revenue  among 
the  States,  and  in  applauding  Van  Buren's  determination 
to  stop  it  the  paper  again  aroused  the  wrath  of  the  busi- 
ness community  in  New  York.  But  upon  certain  other 
issues  it  crossed  swords  with  the  President. 

II 

Bryant,  like  EUery  Channing,  J.  Q.  Adams,  Whittier, 
Wendell  Phillips,  and  Salmon  P.  Chase,  took  up  the  fight 
for  free  speech  and  found  that  it  rapidly  led  him  into  the 
battle  for  free  soil.  In  January,  1836,  Ex-President 
Adams  began  in  the  House  of  Representatives  his  heroic 
contest  with  the  Southerners  for  the  unchecked  reception 
of  abolitionist  petitions  there,  and  in  May  the  "gag" 
resolution  against  these  petitions  was  passed.  Bryant's 
indignation  was  scorching.  He  wrote  upon  the  speech  of 
a  New  York  Senator  (April  21 )  : 

Mr.  Tallmadge  has  done  well  in  vindicating  the  right  of  indi- 
viduals to  address  Congress  on  any  matter  within  its  province. 
...  This  is  something,  at  a  time  when  the  Governor  of  one 
State  demands  of  another  that  free  discussion  on  a  particular  sub- 
ject shall  be  made  a  crime  by  law,  and  when  a  Senator  of  the 
Republic,  and  a  pretended  champion  of  liberty,  rises  in  his  place 
and  proposes  a  censorship  of  the  press  more  servile,  more  tyranni- 
cal, more  arbitrary,  than  subsists  in  any  other  country.  It  is  a 
prudent  counsel  also  that  Mr.  Tallmadge  gives  to  the  South — 
to  beware  of  increasing  the  zeal,  of  swelling  the  ranks  and  multi- 
plying the  friends,  of  the  Abolitionists  by  attempting  to  exclude 
them  from  the  common  rights  of  citizens.  .  .  .  Yet  it  seems  to 
us  that  Mr.  Tallmadge  .  .  .  might  have  gone  a  little  further. 
It  seems  to  us  that  ...  he  should  have  protested  with  somewhat 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  171 

more  energy  and  zeal  against  the  attempt  to  shackle  the  expres- 
sion of  opinion.  It  is  no  time  to  use  honeyed  words  when  the 
liberty  of  speech  is  endangered.  ...  If  the  tyrannical  doctrines 
and  measures  of  Mr.  Calhoun  can  be  carried  into  effect,  there  is 
an  end  to  liberty  in  this  country;  but  carried  into  effect  they  can- 
not be.  It  is  too  late  an  age  to  copy  the  policy  of  Henry  VIII; 
we  lie  too  far  in  the  Occident  to  imitate  the  despotic  rule  of  Austria. 
The  spirit  of  our  people  has  been  too  long  accustomed  to  freedom 
to  bear  the  restraint  which  is  sought  to  be  put  upon  it.  Discus- 
sion will  be  like  the  Greek  fire,  which  blazed  the  fiercer  for  the 
water  thrown  upon  it;  and  if  the  stake  be  set  and. the  faggets 
ready,  there  will  be  candidates  for  martyrdom. 

When  in  August  of  this  year  a  meeting  in  Cincinnati  \ 
resolved  to  silence  J.  G.  Birney's  abolitionist  press  by 
violence,  the  Evening  Post  used  similar  words.  No 
tyranny  in  any  part  of  the  world  was  more  absolute  or 
frightful  than  such  mob  tyranny.  "So  far  as  we  are  con- 
cerned, we  are  resolved  that  this  despotism  shall  neither 
be  submitted  to  nor  encouraged.  .  .  .  We  are  resolved 
that  the  subject  of  slavery  shall  be,  as  it  ever  has  been,  as 
free  a  subject  for  discussion,  and  argument,  and  declama- 
tion, as  the  difference  between  whiggism  and  democracy, 
or  the  difference  between  Armlnlans  and  Calvinists." 
This  was  at  a  time  when  the  right  of  Abolitionists  to  con- 
tinue their  agitation  was  denied  from  some  of  the  most 
influential  New  York  pulpits,  when  the  great  majority  of 
citizens  had  no  tolerance  for  them,  and  when  newspapers 
like  Bennett's  Herald  and  Hallock's  Journal  of  Com- 
merce,  both  pro-slavery,  gave  them  nothing  but  contempt 
and  denunciation.  When  Elijah  P.  Lovejoy  was  mur- 
dered at  Alton,  111.,  by  a  mob,  there  were  Influential  New 
Yorkers  who  believed  that  he  had  received  his  deserts, 
but  Bryant  cried  out  In  horror.  Without  free  tongues 
and  free  pens,  the  nation  would  fall  into  despotism 
or  anarchy.  "We  approve,  then,  we  applaud — we  would 
consecrate,  if  we  could,  to  universal  honor — the  conduct 
of  those  who  bled  In  this  gallant  defense  of  the  freedom 
of  the  press.  Whether  they  erred  or  not  in  their  opinions, 
they  did  not  err  in  the  conviction  of  their  right,  as  citi- 


172  THE  EVENING  POST 

zens  of  a  democratic  State,  to  express  them;  nor  did 
they  err  in  defending  their  rights  with  an  obstinacy  which 
yielded  only  to  death." 

Before  1840  Bryant  had  enrolled  himself  among  those 
who  held  that  the  spread  of  slavery  must  be  stopped. 
President  Van  Buren  had  pledged  himself  to  veto  any 
bill  for  emancipating  the  slaves  in  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia. Although  the  plan  of  freeing  the  District  slaves  was 
abominated  by  most  people  in  New  York  city,  and  even 
J.  Q.  Adams  would  not  vote  in  favor  of  it  in  1836,  the 
Evening  Post  attacked  and  derided  Van  Buren's  pledge. 
When  this  reform  was  included  in  the  Compromise  of 
1850,  it  boasted  that  New  Yorkers  had  been  converted 
to  an  advocacy  of  it  as  overwhelming  as  their  opposition 
a  dozen  years  earlier.  During  1839  a  considerable  stir 
was  produced  in  the  city  by  the  Armistad  affair.  A  num- 
ber of  Africans  sold  as  slaves  in  Cuba  being  transported 
from  Havana  to  Principe  on  the  schooner  Armistad,  rose, 
took  possession  of  the  craft,  and  compelled  those  of  the 
crew  whom  they  had  not  killed  to  steer  the  vessel,  as 
they  believed,  to  Africa.  It  was  brought  into  Long 
Island  Sound  instead,  and  the  negroes  were  seized  as 
criminals.  Bryant  asked  his  friend  Theodore  Sedgwick, 
Jr.,  to  investigate  the  law,  and  the  latter  came  to  the 
conclusion,  which  he  expounded  at  length  in  the  Evening 
Post,  that  the  blacks  could  not  be  held.  They  had  gained 
their  freedom,  he  said,  and  were  heroes  and  not  malefac- 
tors. Secretary  of  State  Forsythe  and  Attorney-General 
Grundy  did  all  they  could  to  vindicate  the  claim  of  the 
Spanish  Minister  to  the  negroes,  but  the  courts  upheld 
Sedgwick's  view  of  the  issue,  and  they  were  liberated. 

Every  conscientious  Democratic  journal  of  the  North 
was  faced  by  a  common  embarrassment  in  the  decade 
1 840-1 850,  when  a  dominance  over  the  Democratic  party 
was  steadily  established  by  advocates  of  the  extension  of 
slavery.  If,  like  the  Herald  or  Journal  of  Commerce  or 
Express,  they  were  friendly  to  the  South  in  defiance  of 
conscience,  they  felt  no  difficulty.  But  the  Evening  Post 
believed  slavery  a  curse.     What  could  it  do  when  Polk 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  173 

(vas  nominated  In  1844  by  its  own  party  upon  a  platform 
favorable  to  this  vicious  Institution,  and  when  the  Demo- 
cratic leaders  carried  the  nation  Into  the  Mexican  War 
with  the  effect,  If  not  the  calculated  purpose,  of  adding 
to  the  slaveowners'  domain?  Bryant  did  not  wish  to 
abandon  the  great  party  which  stood  for  low  tariff,  oppo- 
sition to  the  squandering  of  public  money  on  Internal 
improvements,  and  a  decisive  separation  between  the 
government  and  banking.  He  could  only  do  in  1 844  what 
Greeley  and  the  Tribune  did  in  1848,  when  Taylor,  whom 
the  Tribune  distrusted,  was  nominated  by  the  Whigs; 
stick  to  his  party,  reconcile  his  feelings  as  best  he  could 
with  his  party  allegiance,  and  labor  to  improve  the  party 
from  within. 

The  picturesque  log-cabin  campaign  of  1840  offered 
no  perplexities  to  the  Evening  Post,  It  still  looked  upon 
President  Van  Buren  with  satisfaction,  and  wished  him 
reelected.  Like  Its  opponent  the  Tribune,  it  was  glad 
that  Harrison  had  beaten  Henry  Clay  for  the  Whig 
nomination,  but  that  was  in  no  degree  because  it  re- 
spected Harrison.  It  regarded  the  retired  farmer  and 
Indian  fighter  of  North  Bend,  Ohio,  as  all  Democratic 
organs  regarded  him,  a  nonentity.  What  title  had 
this  feeble  villager  of  nearly  seventy,  whose  last 
public  office  had  been  the  clerkship  of  a  county  court, 
to  the  Presidency?  No  one  has  ever  thought  Harrison 
a  great  statesman,  and  any  undue  severity  on  the  part 
of  the  Evening  Post  may  be  attributed  to  the  warmth  of 
the  campaign.  It  called  him  "a  silly  and  conceited  old 
man  whose  irregularities  of  life  have  enfeebled  his 
originally  feeble  faculties,  and  who  is  as  helpless  in  the 
hands  of  his  party  as  the  idols  of  a  savage  tribe  we  have 
somewhere  read  of,  who  are  flogged  when  they  do  not 
listen  to  the  prayers  of  their  people  for  rain."  At  the 
beginning  of  March  It  declared  that  Harrison  might  be 
elected,  but  that  the  most  sinister  figure  in  his  party 
would  direct  his  policies;  "Harrison  may  be  the  nominal 
chief  magistrate,  but  Clay  will  be  the  Charles  Martel,  the 
Mayor  of  the  Palace." 


174  THE  EVENING  POST 

The  hard-cider,  coonskin-cap,  log-cabin  enthusiasm 
sickened  the  Evening  Post.  The  plan,  commented  Bryant 
on  the  Harrison  songs,  "is  to  cut  us  to  pieces  with  A 
sharp,  to  lay  us  prostrate  with  G  flat,  to  hunt  us  down 
with  fugues,  overrun  us  with  choruses,  and  bring  in  Har- 
rison with  a  grand  diapason."  "The  accomplishment  of 
drinking  hard  cider,  possessed  by  one  of  the  candidates 
for  the  Presidency,"  he  later  wrote,  was  the  safest  the 
Whigs  could  urge.  "If  they  were  to  talk  now  of  his 
talents,  of  his  opinions,  of  his  public  virtues,  and  of  the 
other  qualifications  which  are  commonly  supposed  to  fit  a 
citizen  of  our  republic  for  the  office  of  its  chief  magis- 
trate, they  would  find  themselves  much  embarrassed." 
The  Whigs,  counting  upon  the  reflex  of  the  panic  of  1837, 
and  the  unpopularity  of  Van  Buren,  to  elect  Harrison, 
had  taken  care  to  commit  themselves  to  no  platform. 
The  Evening  Post  therefore  attributed  to  them  all  the 
evil  policies  they  had  ever  espoused.  Was  it  worth  while 
to  shoulder  the  burden  of  a  high  tariff  and  a  costly  inter- 
nal improvement  system,  to  restore  the  corrupt  union  of 
bank  and  state,  to  pay  the  enormous  State  debts  out  of 
the  national  treasury,  and  to  strengthen  Federal  power 
at  the  expense  of  the  States,  all  for  the  sake  of  having  a 
President  who  quaffed  hard  cider? 

During  the  campaign  it  was  hinted  by  the  Evening 
Post  that  if  chosen,  Harrison  could  not  live  to  the  end 
of  his  official  term.  It  recorded  the  fact  that  when  he 
arrived  in  Washington,  the  fatigue  of  receiving  his 
friends  was  "so  great  that  he  was  obliged  to  forego  the 
usual  ceremony  of  shaking  hands  with  them."  A  month 
later  the  paper  was  commenting  upon  the  ghastly  con- 
trast between  the  festivities,  pageants,  and  congratula- 
tions which  attended  his  inauguration,  and  the  solemnity 
and  gloom  as  the  plumed  hearse  carried  his  body,  behind 
six  white  horses,  to  the  Congressional  burying  ground. 
Because  Bryant  refused  to  write  panegryrically  of  the 
dead  President,  though  he  did  write  respectfully,  and 
because  he  refrained  from  using  heavy  black  column  rules 
for  mourning,  a  practice  which  he  called  "typographical 


) 

THE  MEXICAN  WAR  175 

foppery,"  he  was  violently  assailed  by  the  Whig  press 
as  a  "vampire"  and  ''ghoul." 

Bryant  and  Parke  Godwin  naturally  hoped  for  the 
renomination  of  Van  Buren  in  1844,  believing  that  the 
battle  unfairly  won  by  the  Whigs  in  1840  ought  to  be 
fought  again  on  the  same  field,  and  with  the  same  well- 
tried  Democratic  leader.  Bryant  told  the  story  of  the 
Santa  Fe  hunter  who  used  to  pat  his  rifle,  carried  for 
forty  years,  saying:  "I  believe  In  it.  I  know  that  when- 
ever I  fire  there  Is  meat."  In  midsummer  of  1843  he 
was  confident  that  victory  was  already  assured,  the  politi- 
cal reaction  since  1841  being  "without  a  parallel  In  the 
history  of  the  peaceful  conduct  of  affairs  In  this  country." 
The  Evening  Post  welcomed  the  "black  tariff"  of  1842, 
the  work  of  the  Whig  protectionists,  as  contributing 
magnificently  to  this  reaction.  It  was  like  an  overdose 
of  poison;  instead  of  accomplishing  its  purpose,  it  would 
act  as  an  emetic  and  be  rejected  at  once.  But  between 
that  date  and  Polk's  nomination  In  May,  1844,  there 
arose  the  questions  of  Texas  and  slavery,  offering  all 
editors  of  Bryant's  views  the  most  distressing  dilemma. 

From  a  very  early  date  the  Evening  Post  had  opposed 
the  annexation  of  Texas,  except  under  circumstances  that 
would  fully  satisfy  Mexico  on  one  hand,  and  free  soil 
sentiment  on  the  other.  On  June  17,  1836,  when  Texas 
had  just  declared  its  freedom,  Bryant  asserted  that  If 
the  United  States,  under  the  circumstances,  even  acknowl- 
edged Texan  independence,  "our  government  would  lose" 
Its  character  for  justice  and  magnanimity  with  the  whole 
world,  and  would  deserve  to  be  classed  with  those  spoilers 
of  nations  whose  example  we  are  taught  as  republicans 
to  detest."  He  frequently  spoke  with  satisfaction  of  the 
growth  of  the  little  republic,  noting  in  1843  that  it  had 
80,000  people.  But  when  it  became  evident  early  the 
next  year  that  President  Tyler  was  determined  to  effect 
its  annexation,  the  newspaper  was  alarmed.  The  first 
rumor  that  Secretary  of  State  Calhoun  had  negotiated  a 
secret  treaty  with  Texas,  reaching  New  York  in  March, 
threw  It  Into  a  fever  of  indignation.    Its  chief  apprehen- 


176  THE  EVENING  POST 

sion  arose  from  the  fact  that  the  treaty  was  said  to  per- 
mit slavery  in  all  parts  of  the  new  territory  save  a  small 
corner  to  which  it  was  uncertain  the  United  States  would 
have  any  title.  This  led  the  Evening  Post  to  call  the 
project  "unjust,  impolitic,  and  hostile  to  the  freedom  of 
the  human  race." 

The  actual  treaty,  sent  to  the  Senate  on  April  22  by 
President  Tyler,  was  assailed  with  a  variety  of  argu- 
ments, but  the  Evening  Post  harped  chiefly  upon  the  anti- 
slavery  objection.  It  would  inevitably  involve  the  United 
States  in  war  with  Mexico,  and  cost  a  huge  sum  in  men 
and  money.  The  Senate  having  been  elected  at  a  time 
when  no  one  was  thinking  of  the  Texan  question,  it  would 
be  wicked  to  decide  so  important  an  issue  affirmatively; 
there  must  be  some  form  of  national  referendum.  But 
above  all,  the  treaty  was  evil  because  it  would  increase 
the  slave  population  of  the  nation  and  bulwark  this 
monstrous  Southern  institution.  It  would  "keep  alive 
a  war  more  formidable  than  any  to  which  we  are  exposed 
from  Great  Britain  or  any  other  foreign  power — we 
mean  the  dissensions  between  the  northern  and  southern 
regions  of  the  Union.  The  cause  of  these  dissensions,  if 
the  territory  of  the  republic  be  not  enlarged,  is  gradu- 
ally losing  strength  and  visibly  tending  to  its  extinction, 
but  by  the  admission  of  Texas  it  will  be  reinforced  and 
perpetuated."  Theodore  Sedgwick,  Jr.,  writing  under 
the  pen-name  "Veto,"  was  hurriedly  impressed  into 
service  for  a  series  of  articles — admirable  articles,  too. 

The  treaty  was  defeated  in  the  Senate;  and  then  ensued 
the  Presidential  campaign  of  1844,  hinging  upon  it — the 
first  campaign  directly  to  involve  the  slavery  question. 

When  the  Democratic  Convention  met  at  Baltimore  on 
May  27,  1844,  it  was  the  fervent  hope  of  the  Evening 
Post  and  whole  northern  wing  of  the  party  that  it  would 
nominate  Van  Buren.  He  had  publicly  declared  against 
immediate  annexation  of  Texas,  asserting  that  it  would 
look  like  territory-grabbing  and  intimating  that,  as  the 
Post  had  repeatedly  said,  colossal  jobbery  by  land-specu- 
lators was  involved.    The  South  was  determined  that  he 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  177 

should  not  be  named.  The  balloting  for  a  nominee  was 
therefore  a  decision  whether  Democracy  should  stand 
for  or  against  the  extension  of  slave  territory;  and  be- 
cause the  Southerners  were  the  more  aggressive,  they 
won.  Van  Buren  was  defeated  by  the  revival  of  a  rule 
requiring  a  two-thirds  majority,  his  vote  steadily  declin- 
ing, and  Polk,  a  comparatively  unknown  slave-holder, 
was  named.  On  May  8  Bryant  had  said  editorially  that 
"the  party  cannot  be  rallied,  however  the  politicians  may 
exert  themselves,"  In  favor  of  an  annexationist  South- 
erner. He  repeated  this  warning  regarding  the  candi- 
date on  the  eve  of  the  convention;  "If  he  declares  himself 
for  the  annexation  of  Texas,  he  will  encounter  the  de- 
termined opposition"  of  the  North.  It  was  with  uncon- 
cealed dismay  that  the  Evening  Post  chronicled  Polk's 
nomination.  He  was  a  man  of  handsome  talents,  manly 
character,  and  many  sound  views,  it  said,  "but  like  most 
Southern  politicians,  is  deplorably  wrong  on  the  Texas 
question." 

Should  the  Evening  Post  bolt?  For  a  time  Bryant 
considered  doing  so.  But  it  simply  could  not  accept  Clay, 
the  Whig  candidate;  and  admitting  that  "the  fiery  and 
Imperious  South  overrides  and  silences  the  North  in  mat- 
ters of  opinion,"  Bryant  prepared  to  make  the  best  of 
a  wretched  situation.  He  explained  his  stand  by  saying 
that  on  the  one  hand,  he  could  not  possibly  assist  Clay 
to  win  the  Presidency  and  restore  the  United  States  Bank; 
on  the  other,  he  did  not  believe  annexation  Inevitable 
under  Polk.  The  Democratic  platform  had  declared  for 
annexation  "at  the  earliest  practicable  moment";  and  by 
emphasizing  the  word  "practicable,"  and  arguing  that 
it  involved  all  kinds  of  delays,  and  the  establishment  of 
national  good  faith  precedent  to  the  step,  the  newspaper 
tried  to  argue  that  It  was  at  least  distant. 

Bryant's  position  was  made  more  tenable  when,  mid- 
way in  the  campaign,  Clay  wrote  his  famous  and  fatal 
"Raleigh  letter,"  in  which  he  said  that  if  annexation 
could  be  accomplished  without  dishonor,  war,  or  injustice, 
he  would  be  glad  to  see  it.    This  meant,  as  thousands  of 


178  THE  EVENING  POST 

Whigs  felt  when  they  stayed  from  the  polls  on  election 
day,  that  there  was  perhaps  little  to  choose  between  the 
candidates. 

Yet  the  Post  never  quite  surrendered  its  independence, 
and  tried  throughout  the  summer  to  lead  a  movement 
within  the  party  for  ?i  proper  solution  of  the  Texas  ques- 
tion. There  were  e:.cmies  to  annexation  in  Texas  itself, 
it  believed;  there  were  enemies  throughout  the  South, 
even  in  South  Carolina,  and  the  initial  enthusiasm  for  it 
was  beginning  to  cool.  If  the  Northern  Democrats  as- 
serted themselves  forcibly  against  it  as  a  party  measure, 
"the  day  of  this  scheme,  we  are  fully  assured,  will  soon 
be  over."  In  pursuance  of  this  policy,  Bryant,  Theodore 
Sedgwick,  David  Dudley  Field,  and  three  other  New 
Yorkers  drew  up  a  confidential  circular  to  a  number  of 
Democrats  of  like  views,  proposing  a  joint  manifesto  in 
opposition  to  annexation,  and  a  concerted  effort  to  elect 
anti-annexationist  Congressmen.  This  manifesto  ap- 
peared in  the  Evening  Post  of  Aug.  20,  and  made  a 
considerable  impression  in  New  York.  But  such  efforts 
were  in  vain.  Polk's  election  made  the  entrance  of  Texas 
into  the  Union  a  certainty,  and  it  was  indeed  authorized 
by  a  joint  resolution  of  Congress  the  day  before  he  took 
office.  Bryant  must  have  questioned  that  March  whether 
his  newspaper,  which  had  so  decisively  lost  its  fight, 
should  not  have  taken  the  side  of  the  hated  Clay. 

The  final  protests  against  annexation  did  not  commit 
the  Post  to  any  opposition  to  the  Mexican  War.  That 
conflict  did  not  begin  for  more  than  two  years,  until 
April,  1 846 ;  and  the  events  of  the  interim  convinced 
Bryant  that  Mexico  rather  than  America  was  responsible 
for  it.  Polk  acted  pacifically,  and  the  poet's  friend,  Ban- 
croft, then  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  wrote  him  that  "we 
were  driven  reluctantly  to  war."  Mexico  had,  the 
Evening  Post  believed,  committed  numberless  aggressions 
upon  American  interests,  while  after  severing  diplomatic 
relations,  she  would  not  renew  them  except  on  impossible 
terms.  The  journal  affirmed  its  belief  (May  13,  1846) 
in  "the  inconsistency  of  a  war  of  invasion  and  conquest 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  179 

with  the  character  of  our  government  and  the  ends  for 
which  Providence  has  manifestly  raised  up  our  republic." 
It  said  then  and  when  peace  had  come  that  the  nation 
would  yet  hold  to  a  fearful  responsibility  the  Southerners 
who  had  precipitated  the  annexation  and  the  war  for  the 
perpetuation  of  slavery.  But  it  did  not  think  that  the 
weak  and  violent  Mexican  government  had  a  right  to 
the  perpetual  allegiance  of  Texans,  or  to  menace  our  ter- 
ritory after  the  annexation.  Whereas  every  one  of  sense 
had  opposed  a  war  with  England  over  the  Oregon  ques- 
tion, Bryant  wrote,  only  one  or  two  newspapers  were 
attacking  this  collision.  Writing  that  "we  approve  of 
such  demonstrations  of  vigor  as  shall  convince  Mexico 
that  we  are  in  earnest,"  the  editor  favored  a  resolute 
prosecution  of  the  struggle. 

Ill 

While  the  Evening  Post  was  establishing  a  militant 
free-soil  position,  its  news  features  were  improving.  The 
office  force  remained  pitifully  small.  In  addition  to 
Bryant,  his  assistant,  Parke  Godwin,  and  a  reporter,  at 
the  end  of  1843  room  was  made  for  a  commercial  editor, 
who  supplied  information  on  the  markets,  wrote  upon 
business  affairs,  and  supervised  the  marine  intelligence; 
these  four  made  up  the  staff.  The  paper  was  enlarged  in 
1840,  going  from  seven  columns  to  eight  and  lengthening 
its  page,  while  in  1842  commenced  the  issuance  of  a 
weekly  Evening  Post,  in  addition  to  the  semi-weekly — 
a  profitable  innovation.  It  was  wonderful  that  so  few 
men  could  do  so  much.  In  the  fact  that  they  did  we  have 
the  explanation  of  a  little  note  Mrs.  Bryant  wrote  to 
Mrs.  William  Ware,  wife  of  the  author  of  "Zenobia," 
in  the  late  thirties:  "Mr.  Bryant  has  gone  to  his  office. 
You  cannot  think  how  distressed  I  am  about  his  working 
so  hard.  He  gets  up  as  soon  as  it  is  light,  takes  a  mouth- 
ful to  eat, — it  cannot  be  called  a  breakfast,  for  it  is  often 
only  what  the  Germans  call  a  'stick  of  bread' ;  occasionally 
the  milkman  comes  in  season  for  him  to  get  some  bread 
and  milk.    As  yet,  his  health  is  good,  but  I  fear  that  his 


i8o  THE  EVENING  POST 

constitution  is  not  strong  enough  for  such  intense  labor." 
Occasionally  a  little  help  was  lent  by  outsiders — James  K. 
Paulding  as  well  as  Sedgwick  contributed  editorials  early 
in  the  forties;  but  it  was  little. 

Year  by  year  the  local  news  improved.  Bryant  had  at 
first  objected  to  reports  of  criminal  cases  on  moral 
grounds,  but  he  now  took  the  sensible  view  that  to  have 
the  light  let  in  upon  evil  assisted  in  combating  it.  As 
early  as  1836  he  had  the  famous  murder  of  Helen  Jewett 
covered  in  detail.  Another  of  his  early  prejudices  was 
against  the  reporting  of  lectures  by  which  many  literary 
men  of  the  day  made  part  of  their  living,  on  the  ground 
that  if  the  report  was  faithful,  it  tended  to  prevent  a 
repetition  of  the  lecture,  but  even  while  he  voiced  this 
opinion,  in  1841,  he  was  giving  a  comprehensive  sum- 
mary of  Emerson's  addresses.  Beginning  in  1845,  the 
Evening  Post  published  a  daily  column  with  the  heading, 
"City  Intelligence,"  which  was  often  a  queer  melange  of 
news  and  editorial  comment,  for  it  discussed  urgent 
municipal  needs — the  improvement  of  the  Tombs,  the 
adoption  of  mechanical  street  sweepers,  the  substitution 
of  a  paid  fire  department  for  the  volunteer  system,  and 
so  on.  The  headings  for  a  typical  Monday  in  1848  run 
thus: 

Confusion  Among  the  Judges  (Six  courts  met  at  10  a.  m.,  at 
City  Hall,  with  only  four  rooms  among  them). 

Foul  Affair  at  Sea  (The  brig  Colonel  Taylor  arrives,  and  re- 
ports that  its  mate  at  sea  threw  a  sailor  overboard). 

Removal  of  the  Telegraph  Offices  (Albany  and  Buffalo  Com- 
pany removes  to  16  Wall  Street). 

Case  of  Mme.  Restel  (Developments  in  a  murder  case). 

Fires — A  Child  Burnt  to  Death  (The  week-end  conflagrations 
totalled  eleven,  a  modest  list.  At  one  in  Leroy  Street  nine  houses 
had  been  burnt ;  at  one  in  Thirteenth  Street  a  child  and  six  horses 
had  been  killed). 

City  Statistics  (The  last  year  saw  1,823  new  buildings  erected; 
the  city  had  327  licensed  omnibuses,  3,780  taverns  and  saloons,  168 
junkshops,  and  681  charcoal  peddlers). 

And  so  the  column  continued   through  police   news, 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  i8i 

theater  puffs,  and  notices  of  academy  commencements, 
until  it  ended  just  above  an  advertisement  of  Sands's 
Sarsaparilla  and  the  Balsam  of  Wild  Cherry,  glowingly 
recommended  by  testimonials. 

But  the  chief  improvement  in  the  news  was  wrought 
by  special  correspondence,  which  early  in  the  forties  at- 
tained a  surprising  extent  and  finish.  By  various  means, 
including  advertising  for  correspondents,  Bryant  built  up 
a  staff  of  contributors  that  covered  every  part  of  the 
nation.  In  1 841-2  each  week  during  the  sessions  of  Con- 
gress brought  letters  from  two  men,  "Z"  and  "Very," 
while  during  the  legislative  session  there  were  two  Albany 
correspondents,  "L"  and  "Publius."  Every  important 
State  capital  north  of  Richmond  had  its  contributor.  In 
the  first  week  of  1842,  for  example,  appeared  letters  from 
Springfield,  III.,  Providence,  R.  I.,  and  Detroit,  Mich.  A 
Paris  correspondent  wrote  regularly  over  the  initials 
"A.  v.,"  and  a  London  correspondent  signed  much  more 
frequent  articles  "O.  P.  Q." 

This  London  correspondence  ran  to  great  length.  Into 
one  typical  article,  printed  on  March  14,  1842,  "O.  P.  Q." 
crowded  an  account  of  the  royal  christening,  at  which 
the  future  Edward  VII  "was  got  back  to  the  Castle  with- 
out squalling";  the  Dublin  elections;  Macready's  experi- 
ment at  Drury  Lane  Theater,  where  for  the  first  time  the 
pit  seats  had  been  "provided  with  backs,  and,  together 
with  the  boxes,  numbered,  and  a  ticket  given  to  the  occu- 
pant, who  thus  keeps  his  seat  throughout  the  evening"; 
of  Adelaide  Kemble's  singing  at  Covent  Garden;  of 
Douglas  Jerrold's  new  comedy,  "Prisoners  of  War" ;  and 
of  the  new  books,  including  Mrs.  Trollope's  "Blue  Belles 
of  England";  the  whole  concluding  with  some  gossip 
about  a  ruler  in  whom  Americans  were  more  interested 
than  in  President  Tyler : 

It  is  said  that  the  Queen  still  continues  staunch  Whig;  that  she 
is  civil,  but  laconic,  to  the  Tories;  and  that  pleasant  old  Lord  Mel- 
bourne's easy  chair,  in  which  he  used  to  take  his  after-dinner  nap 
when  he  dined  at  the  palace,  is  still  kept  for  his  use  alone,  being 


\ 


1 82  THE  EVENING  POST 

wheeled  out  of  the  closet  when  he  dines  there,  and  wheeled  back 
when  he  takes  his  departure. 

Her  majesty  and  her  husband  appear  to  go  on  as  comfortably 
as  if  they  lived  in  a  cottage  (ornee)  untroubled  with  crowns  and 
royal  christenings.  Prince  Albert  is  a  good  deal  liked  for  the 
sensible  and  unassuming  manner  in  which  he  has  heretofore  con- 
ducted himself.  At  the  Mayor's  dinner,  the  other  day,  he  said 
he  began  to  feel  himself  "quite  at  home."  One  of  the  papers 
remarks:  *'Of  course  he  does;  what  respectable  man,  living  two 
years  in  the  most  comfortable  house,  with  a  charming  young  wife, 
a  rising  family,  good  shooting,  and  the  general  esteem,  could  feel 
otherwise  than  at  home?" 

The  most  striking  feature  in  newspaper  correspondence 
of  the  forties  was  the  prominence  given  mere  travel. 
Americans  were  more  curious  about  their  expanding  and 
fast-filling  land  than  now,  and  the  expense  and  hardship 
of  travel  made  its  vicarious  enjoyment  greater.  Two 
midsummer  months  In  1843  afford  a  representative  view 
of  this  side  of  the  newspaper.  Bryant  concluded  his  cor- 
respondence written  during  a  trip  to  South  Carolina  and 
Florida,  describing  Charleston  Harbor,  a  plantation  corn- 
shucking,  negro  songs,  alligators,  tobacco-chewing,  and 
the  reminders  of  the  Seminole  War.  From  another  cor- 
ner of  the  Union  an  unsigned  letter  of  3,000  words  de- 
scribed an  Interesting  trip  through  wilder  Michigan. 
Bryant,  returning  north,  contributed  from  Keene,  N.  H., 
and  Addison  County,  Vt.,  a  description  of  scenery  In  those 
two  States.  From  Columbus,  O.,  some  one  wrote  of  his 
journey  thither  by  way  of  the  Great  Lakes.  In  August 
a  correspondent  at  Saratoga  waxed  loquacious.  He  nar- 
rated some  Incidents  he  had  observed  of  J.  Q.  Adams's 
tour  In  upper  New  York;  pictured  Martin  Van  Buren  so- 
journing at  the  Springs,  "as  round,  plump,  and  happy  as 
a  partridge,"  and  said  to  be  looking  for  a  wife;  and 
sketched  N.  P.  Willis,  at  a  ball  there,  "surrounded  by 
bevies  of  literary  loungers  and  dilettanti,  who  look  up 
to  him  with  equal  respect  for  the  fashionable  cut  of  his 
coat  and  the  exceeding  gracefulness  of  his  writings." 

Bryant  wrote  letters  from  all  his  foreign  tours — those 
of   1834-6,    1845-6,    1849,    1852-3,   and   1857-8;  while 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  183 

others  of  the  staff  who  traveled  did  the  same.  In  1834 
the  Evening  Post  published  a  series  of  letters  from  South 
American  ports,  written  anonymously  by  a  naval  officer 
on  an  American  warship ;  while  for  twenty  years  regular 
correspondence  was  furnished  by  a  resident  of  Buenos 
Aires.  When  Commodore  Biddle  sailed  into  Yeddo  Bay 
the  summer  of  1846  to  try  to  establish  treaty  relations 
with  Japan,  an  officer  of  his  squadron  sent  the  Post  a 
highly  interesting  account  of  their  chill  reception.  The 
vessels  were  surrounded  with  hundreds  of  armed  boats 
from  the  day  their  arrival  produced  consternation  upon 
land;  they  had  been  supplied  with  water,  wood,  poultry, 
and  vegetables,  free;  but  the  authorities  had  peremptorily 
refused  any  further  intercourse.  Two  years  later  both 
the  Paris  and  Berlin  correspondents  wrote  vivid  descrip- 
tions of  the  revolutionary  uprisings  of  that  year,  the 
former  being  in  the  thick  of  the  fighting  on  the  Boule- 
vards. Special  correspondence  in  the  early  fifties  came 
even  from  Siam.  But  we  can  best  give  an  impression 
of  the  wealth  of  this  mailed  matter  by  summarizing  it  for 
a  single  month  (August,  1850)  : 

From  Washington  and  Albany,  continuous  correspondence; 
from  Toronto,  three  articles,  on  Dominion  politics  and  railways; 
from  Montreal,  letter  on  a  great  fire  there  and  sentiment  toward 
America;  from  London,  letters  by  Wm.  H.  Maxwell  and  "XYZ" 
on  Peel's  last  speech,  California  gold  fever,  African  trade,  stock 
prices,  corn  laws,  sorrow  over  President  Taylor's  death,  etc. ; 
Paris  correspondence  on  dinner  to  President  Louis  Napoleon  and 
shouts  of  **Vive  I'Empereur !";  Boston,  letters  on  Massachusetts 
politics  and  sad  case  of  Dr.  Webster,  awaiting  execution  after 
having  confessed  his  murder;  New  Haven,  four  articles  on  Yale 
Commencement,  President  Woolsey's  oration,  and  a  scientific  con- 
vention; Chicago,  the  cholera,  the  Illinois  canal,  and  crops; 
Rochester,  the  Erie  Railroad  and  the  "Rochester  rappings";  Brat- 
tleboro  and  White  Mountains,  descriptions  of  summer  excursions ; 
Chester  County,  Pa.,  home  life  of  Senator  James  Cooper,  a  hated 
traitor  to  free-soil  principles;  Berkshire  Valley,  charms  of  the 
Housatonic. 

The  world's  first  war  to  be  thoroughly  and  graphically 


1 84  THE  EVENING  POST 

treated  in  the  daily  newspapers  was,  not  the  Crimean 
War  in  which  William  H.  Russell  won  his  fame,  but  the 
Mexican  War.  It  was  George  Wilkins  Kendall,  a 
Yankee  from  New  Hampshire  who  had  helped  found  the 
New  Orleans  Picayune  nine  years  earlier,  who  made  the 
chief  individual  reputation  as  a  correspondent.  Cam- 
paigning first  with  Gen.  Zachary  Taylor  on  the  Rio 
Grande,  and  then  joining  Winfield  Scott  on  the  latter's 
dangerous  and  triumphant  march  from  Vera  Cruz  to 
Mexico  City,  always  in  the  thick  of  the  fighting,  once 
wounded,  organizing  a  wonderfully  effective  combination 
of  courier  and  steamboat  service,  Kendall  gave  the 
Picayune  by  far  the  best  current  history  of  a  war  that 
journalism  in  any  land  had  seen.  The  New  Orleans 
Delta,  the  Baltimore  Sun,  the  New  York  Herald,  and,  at 
a  slight  remove,  the  Evening  Post,  followed  the  fighting 
with  admirable  enterprise. 

News  of  the  war  came  to  the  East  through  two  main 
channels.  The  greater  part  of  it  was  brought  from  the 
border  (i.  e.,  from  Brownsville  or  Matamoras)  or  from 
Vera  Cruz  to  New  Orleans  or  Pensacola,  and  thence 
overland  northward;  a  smaller  part  came  in  on  the  long 
Santa  Fe  trail  to  St.  Louis.  Thus  on  Christmas  Day, 
1846,  Col.  Doniphan,  at  the  head  of  a  force  of  confident 
Missourians,  defeated  a  Mexican  detachment  in  the  little 
skirmish  of  Brazitos,  near  El  Paso.  A  company  of 
traders  from  Santa  Fe  brought  the  news  into  Inde- 
pendence, Missouri,  on  Feb.  15,  and  the  local  news-writer 
there  wrote  a  dispatch  which  was  printed  in  the  St.  Louis 
Republic  on  the  26th.  The  Evening  Post  copied  it  on 
March  8,  long  after  most  of  Doniphan's  seven  wounded 
men  had  forgotten  their  injuries.  El  Paso  had  been 
captured  from  the  Mexicans  on  Dec.  27,  and  the  fact 
was  known  in  New  York  on  March  10. 

The  delay  in  obtaining  the  news  of  Buena  Vista  gave 
rise  to  disheartening  rumors.  The  battle  which  made  "Old 
Rough  and  Ready"  a  national  idol  and  the  next  President 
of  the  United  States  was  fought  on  Feb.  23,  1847,  ^^^ 
for  a  month  thereafter  the  gloomiest  reports  appeared 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  185 

in  the  press.  After  the  middle  of  March  Washington 
and  New  York  were  confused  and  alarmed  by  vague  dis- 
patches from  the  Southwest;  on  March  21  President  Polk 
received  a  detailed  account  of  Taylor's  perilous  position, 
menaced  by  a  force  three  times  as  large  as  his  own,  and 
New  York  heard  of  It  Immediately  afterward.  On  the 
evening  of  the  twenty-second  the  messages  to  Washing- 
ton had  "Taylor  completely  cut  off  by  an  overwhelming 
force  of  the  enemy,"  but  no  word  of  fighting.  The 
Evening  Post  of  March  30  carried  Its  first  news  of  a 
definite  disaster.  It  republished  from  the  New  Orleans 
Delta  a  dispatch,  brought  by  ship,  stating  "that  Gen. 
Taylor  was  attacked  at  Agua  Nueva  and  fell  back,  in 
good  order,  to  the  vicinity  of  Saltillo;  here  he  was  again 
attacked  by  Santa  Anna,  and  a  sharp  engagement  ensued 
in  which  Gtn.  Taylor  was  victorious,  continuing  his  re- 
treat In  good  order.  Gen.  Taylor  fell  back  to  Monterey, 
where  he  arrived  in  safety."  Read  between  the  lines, 
this  meant  a  humiliating  defeat.  Every  one  was  prepared 
to  credit  it,  and  it  was  partly  corroborated  by  more 
meager  news  carried  In  the  New  Orleans  Bulletin. 

Nevertheless,  the  Post  uttered  a  shrewd  caution 
against  believing  the  reports.  It  was  justified  the  follow- 
ing day  when  copies  of  the  New  Orleans  Mercury  ar- 
rived, dated  March  23,  bearing  the  full  tidings  of  Tay- 
lor's victory  against  crushing  odds.  The  false  rumors 
had  filtered  out  through  Tampico  and  Vera  Cruz;  the 
truth  was  brought  by  army  messengers  to  Monterey,  who 
had  to  make  a  detour  of  hundreds  of  miles  to  evade 
Mexican  guerillas.  When  It  reached  Washington  it 
found  the  politicians  fiercely  debating  who  was  respon- 
sible for  so  weakening  Taylor's  army  as  to  enable  Santa 
Anna  to  smash  it;  when  it  reached  New  York  It  found  the 
people  depressed  and  Indignant;  and  when  It  got  to  Bos- 
ton on  April  i,  many  denounced  it  as  an  April  Fool's  joke. 

As  the  war  continued  the  dispatches  came  more  rap- 
idly. The  Baltimore  Sun  early  established  an  express  of 
sixty  blooded  horses  overland  from  New  Orleans,  and 
when  It  was  in  effective  operation  newspapers  and  letters 


1 86  THE  EVENING  POST 

were  carried  over  the  route  in  six  days.  This  made  it 
possible  to  have  newsboys  on  Broadway  shouting  the 
capture  of  Vera  Cruz  a  fortnight  after  it  occurred.  As 
Scott  pushed  inland  toward  Mexico  City,  dispatches  from 
him  were  retarded,  for  marauding  Mexicans  made  his 
line  of  communications  with  the  sea  unsafe.  Kendall 
used  to  start  his  express  riders  from  the  army  at  mid- 
night, and  he  chose  men  who  knew  the  country  perfectly; 
but  several  were  captured  and  others  killed.  Neverthe- 
less, the  Evening  Post  could  publish  the  news  of  Cerro 
Gordo,  fought  on  April  i8,  on  May  7;  the  news  of  the 
capture  of  Mexico  City,  which  occurred  on  Sept.  14,  on 
Oct.  4,  or  less  than  three  weeks  after  the  event. 

Three  correspondents  in  the  field  furnished  the  Evening 
Post  with  letters — Lieut.  Nathaniel  Niles,  an  Illinois 
soldier  with  Gen.  Taylor;  "M.  R."  with  Scott,  and  "B" 
at  Matamoras.  The  last  gave  a  striking  history  of  the 
rapid  Americanization  of  this  Mexican  town,  telling  how 
the  inhabitants  reaped  a  golden  fortune  and  how  Taylor's 
soldiers  chafed  under  their  enforced  stay.  "M.  R."  con- 
tributed a  picture  of  the  taking  of  Vera  Cruz,  in  which 
he  carried  a  rifle.  But  Niles  was  the  most  active  and  the 
best  writer.  When  the  New  Orleans  papers,  with  their 
advantage  of  position,  tried  to  give  all  the  credit  of 
Buena  Vista  to  the  Mississippi  troops  (commanded  by 
Jefferson  Davis)  and  to  the  Kentuckians,  Niles  flatly  con- 
tradicted them.  The  Indiana  and  Illinois  men,  he  said, 
deserved  quite  as  much  praise.  His  account  of  the  de- 
cisive moment  at  Buena  Vista,  when  the  attack  of  the 
Mexicans  had  been  finally  and  bloodily  repulsed,  is  worth 
quoting : 

At  length,  about  three  o'clock  p.  m.,  we  saw  the  Mexican  force 
in  our  rear  begin  to  falter  and  retrace  their  steps,  under  the  well- 
directed  shot  of  our  ranks  of  marksmen,  and  the  artillery  still 
pouring  its  iron  death-bolts  into  their  right.  Their  lancers,  who 
had  taken  refuge  behind  their  infantry,  and  there  watched  the 
progress  of  the  fight,  made  one  desperate  charge  to  turn  the  for- 
tunes of  the  day  by  breaking  the  line  of  Indiana  and  Mississippi. 
But  the  cool,  steady  volunteers  sent  them  with  carnage  and  con- 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  187 

fusion  to  Santa  Ana,  on  the  plain  above,  with  the  report  that 
our  reserve  was  5,000  strong,  and  filled  all  the  ravines  in  our 
rear.  The  retreat  of  their  infantry,  which  paused  for  a  moment, 
was  now  hastened  by  the  repulse  of  the  lancers,  but  still  under  a 
galling  fire.  They  marched  back  in  excellent  order.  While  mak- 
ing their  toilsome  and  bloody  way  back,  Santa  Ana  practised  a 
ruse  to  which  any  French  or  English  officer  would  have  scorned 
to  resort.  He  exhibited  a  flag  of  truce,  and  sent  it  across  the 
plain  to  our  right,  where  stood  our  generals. 

When  the  Second  Indiana,  under  Col.  Bowles,  fled 
from  the  field  after  the  first  Mexican  onset  upon  the 
American  left,  leaving  the  way  to  Taylor's  rear  open, 
some  one  suggested — says  NUes — a  retreat.  "Retreat  I" 
exclaimed  Taylor;  "No;  I  will  charge  them  with  the  bay- 
onet." Nlles  reported  many  human  Incidents  of  the  war, 
and  dwelt  upon  the  barbarity  of  the  Mexicans : 

They  generally  killed  and  plundered,  even  of  their  clothes,  all 
whom  the  current  of  battle  threw  into  their  hands.  We,  on  the 
contrary,  saved  the  lives  of  all  who  threw  down  their  arms,  and 
relieved  the  wants  of  the  wounded,  even  in  the  midst  of  battle. 
I  have  seen  the  young  American  volunteer,  when  bullets  were 
flying  around  him,  kneel  beside  a  wounded  Mexican  and  let  him 
drink  out  of  his  canteen.  In  one  heap  of  wounded  Mexicans  we 
came  upon  a  groaning  man,  whom  an  Illinois  soldier  raised  and 
gave  water.  We  had  gone  only  a  few  steps  past  when  the  soldier 
thus  helped  twisted  himself  upon  his  elbow  and  shot  our  man 
through  the  back  dead;  three  or  four  volleys  instantly  repaid  this 
treachery. 

The  first  intimation  of  the  revolution  In  news-gathering 
which  occurred  In  the  middle  forties  was  furnished  Eve- 
ning Post  readers  In  the  Issue  of  May  27,  1844,  when 
the  Washington  correspondent  told  of  Morse's  successful 
experiment  with  the  telegraph  two  days  earlier.  "What 
Is  the  news  In  Washington?"  was  the  question  asked  from 
Baltimore,  where  the  Democratic  National  Convention 
was  about  to  meet.  "Van  Buren  stock  Is  rising,"  came 
the  answer.  On  May  31  the  correspondent  sent  another 
brief  mention  of 


1 88  THE  EVENING  POST 

MORSE'S  TELEGRAPH.— This  wonderful  invention  or 
discovery  of  a  new  means  of  transmitting  intelligence,  is  in  full 
and  perfectly  successful  operation.  Mr.  Morse  is  the  magician 
at  the  end  of  the  line,  and  an  assistant  who  does  not  spell  with 
perfect  correctness  officiates. 

There  have  arrived  numerous  telegraphic  dispatches  since  the 
meeting  of  the  Convention  at  Baltimore  at  nine  o'clock  this  morn- 
ing. By  one  we  are  informed  of  the  nomination  of  Mr.  George  M. 
Dallas,  of  Philadelphia,  for  Vice-President. 

All  the  New  York  newspapers,  the  Herald  leading, 
shortly  had  a  column  of  telegraphic  news,  and  from  that 
in  the  Evening  Post  we  can  trace  the  steady  extension  of 
the  wires.  In  the  early  spring  of  1846  communication 
was  opened  between  New  York  and  Philadelphia.  When 
war  was  declared,  April  24,  the  line  to  Washington  was 
incomplete,  not  having  been  finished  between  Baltimore 
and  Philadelphia,  but  the  gap  was  soon  closed.  The 
fastest  carriage  of  news  between  the  capital  and  New 
York,  220  miles,  had  been  that  of  Harrison's  inaugural 
message,  weighty  with  its  Roman  consuls  and  Greek  gen- 
erals, in  eleven  hours;  now  eleven  minutes  sufficed.  By 
the  middle  of  September,  when  the  line  to  Buffalo  was 
complete,  the  country  had  1,200  miles  of  telegraph,  reach- 
ing above  Boston  towards  Portland,  to  Washington  on 
the  south,  and  to  Harrisburg  on  the  west. 

During  1847  the  expansion  of  the  telegraphic  system 
amazed  all  who  did  not  stop  to  think  how  much  simpler 
and  cheaper  the  installation  of  a  line  was  than  the  build- 
ing of  a  road.  By  March  it  had  reached  Pittsburgh  on 
the  west,  and  by  September,  Petersburg  on  the  south. 
The  next  month  saw  it  in  Cincinnati  and  Louisville,  and 
that  fall  the  Evening  Post  printed  telegraph  news  of  a 
Cincinnati  flood  which  made  5,000  homeless.  In  its  New 
Year's  message  the  journal  congratulated  its  readers  upon 
such  progress  that  "the  moment  a  dispatch  arrives  at 
New  Orleans  from  our  armies  in  Mexico  its  contents  are 
known  on  the  borders  of  the  northern  lakes."  The  next 
year  Florida  alone  of  the  States  east  of  the  Mississippi 
was  untouched  by  it.     When  the  President's  message 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  189 

opening  Congress  in  December,  1848,  was  transmitted  to 
St.  Louis,  the  Evening  Post  remarked  that  "the  idea  of  a 
document  filling  twelve  entire  pages  of  the  Washington 
Union  appearing  in  a  city  nearly  one  thousand  miles  from 
Washington,  twenty-four  hours  after  its  delivery,  is  al- 
most beyond  belief."  Christopher  Pearse  Cranch  con- 
tributed a  poem  to  the  Post  upon  the  marvel: 

The  world  of  the  Past  was  an  Infant; 

It  knew  not  the  speech  of  today, 

When  giants  sit  talking  from  mountain  to  sea, 

And  the  cities  are  wizards,  who  say : 

The  kingdom  of  magic  is  ours; 

We  touch  a  small  clicking  machine, 

And  the  lands  of  the  East  hear  the  lands  of  the  West 

With  never  a  bar  between. 

Ten  years  after  the  opening  of  the  first  American  tele- 
graph line  Bryant  made  some  caustic  remarks  in  the 
Evening  Post  upon  "The  Slow-Coach  System  in  Europe." 
For  many  months,  it  transpired,  the  Allies  in  the  Crimean 
War  had  possessed  a  continuous  telegraph  line  from  Lon- 
don to  the  battle  front.  It  had  been  demonstrated  that 
dispatches  sufficient  to  fill  two  columns  of  the  London 
Times  might  be  sent  over  it  in  two  hours;  yet  the  French 
and  British  publics  had  been  obliged  to  wait  two  weeks 
for  full  details  of  the  fall  of  Sebastopol,  simply  because 
the  Allied  authorities  did  not  organize  a  competent  tele- 
graphic staff. 

IV 

In  this  decade  of  rapid  changes,  1 840-1 850,  Bryant 
began  to  reap  the  fruits  of  his  courage,  persistency,  tact, 
and  industry.  The  hostility  of  the  mercantile  community 
had  lessened  as  the  Bank  question  receded  and  the  cor- 
rectness of  the  Post's  warnings  against  inflation  and 
speculation  was  proved  by  the  great  panic.  On  March 
30,  1840,  Bryant  editorially  rejoiced  that  "the  prejudices 
against  it,  with  which  its  enemies  had  labored  so  vehe- 
mently to  poison  the  minds  of  men  of  business,  have  been 
gradually  overcome."     The  pressure  of  advertisements 


190  THE  EVENING  POST 

forced  the  enlargement  of  the  sheet  in  this  year.  The 
weekly  edition  which  it  began  issuing  at  New  Year's, 
1842,  was  the  only  Democratic  weekly  In  New  York,  and 
at  $2  a  year  rapidly  obtained  an  extensive  circulation.  In 
competition  with  sixpenny  evening  papers  like  the  Jour- 
nal of  Commerce  and  penny  papers  like  the  Daily  News, 
the  Post  held  its  own.  It  took  Its  share  In  all  the  busi- 
ness enterprises  of  the  press,  as  when  in  1849-50,  at  the 
height  of  the  gold  fever,  it  published  a  special  ^'Evening 
Post  for  California,  Oregon,  and  the  Sandwich  Islands" 
just  before  every  important  sailing  for  the  Pacific.  Bry- 
ant's sagacity  kept  the  expenses  low,  and  his  ability  kept 
the  editorial  page  easily  the  best,  save  for  Greeley's,  in 
the  city. 

It  was  a  reflection  of  the  new  Evening  Post  prosperity 
when  Bryant  wrote  his  brother  early  in  1843  *  ^'Congrat- 
ulate  me  I  There  is  a  probability  of  my  becoming  a  land- 
holder In  New  York  I  I  have  made  a  bargain  for  about 
forty  acres  of  solid  earth  at  Hempstead  Harbor,  on  the 
north  shore  of  Long  Island."  He  referred  to  the  Ros- 
lyn  homestead  at  which  thereafter  he  was  to  spend  so 
much  of  his  time.  Between  1839  ^^^  1840  the  gross 
earnings  of  the  journal  rose  from  $28,355.29  to  $44,- 
194.93,  and  they  never  thereafter  dropped  to  the  danger 
point.  In  1850  It  was  calculated  that  for  the  preceding 
ten  years  the  average  annual  gross  receipts  had  been 
$37,360,  and  that  the  average  annual  dividends  had  been 
$9,776.44.  Of  this  Bryant's  share  until  1848  was  one- 
half,  and  thereafter  two-fifths,  so  that  he  enjoyed  an 
ample  income;  while  towards  the  end  of  the  decade  the 
profits  of  the  job  printing  oflfice  were  a  tidy  sum. 

Nor  was  there  so  much  drudgery  In  the  office  as  when 
he  had  first  returned  in  1836.  Parke  Godwin  draws  an 
Interesting  picture  of  the  editor's  life  at  this  period.  He 
liked  to  take  a  week  of  fine  summer  weather  from  the 
office  and  spend  it  in  excursions  to  the  Palisades,  the 
Delaware  Water  Gap,  the  Catskills,  or  the  Berkshires, 
sometimes  alone,  sometimes  with  another  good  walker. 
Bryant's   appreciative   descriptions  of  these   scenes  did 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  191 

much  to  raise  the  public  esteem  of  them.  At  the  office 
there  were  many  entertaining  visitors.  Cooper  always 
called  when  he  was  in  town,  and  the  contrast  between  the 
novelist  and  the  poet  was  striking:  "Cooper,  burly, 
brusque,  and  boisterous,  like  a  bluff  sailor,  always  bring- 
ing a  breeze  of  quarrel  with  him;  Mr.  Bryant,  shy,  mod- 
est, and  delicate  as  a  woman — they  seemed  little  fitted 
for  friendship."  Yet  warm  friends  they  were.  John  L. 
Stephens,  who  had  won  a  reputation  by  his  travels  in 
Arabia,  Nubia,  and  Central  America,  and  whose  books 
were  in  considerable  vogue,  frequently  came,  "a  small, 
sharp,  nervous  man,"  and  talked  of  his  adventures.  A 
more  magnetic  personality  was  that  of  Audubon,  whose 
tall,  athletic  figure,  Indian-bronzed  face,  bright  eyes, 
eagle  nose,  and  long  white  hair  attracted  the  eyes  of  every 
worker.  He,  too,  loved  to  tell  of  his  exploits  in  the  wilds, 
and  his  experiences  in  the  salons  of  Europe.  Bancroft, 
who  liked  Bryant's  Jacksonian  zeal  as  much  as  he  did 
his  poetry,  and  William  Gilmore  Simms,  author  of  "The 
Yemassee,"  occasionally  paid  a  visit,  while  Godwin  be- 
lieved he  remembered  seeing  Edgar  Allan  Poe  "once  or 
twice,  to  utter  nothing,  but  to  look  his  reverence  out  of 
wonderful  lustrous  eyes." 


CHAPTER  EIGHT 

NEW  YORK  BECOMES  A  METROPOLIS;  CENTRAL  PARK 

Ten  years  before  the  Civil  War,  New  York  city  had 
515,000  people,  the  population  having  risen  by  more 
than  200,000  in  the  forties.  The  northward  march  of 
buildings  had  passed  Twenty-third  Street,  and  the  ex- 
treme northern  boundary  could  now  be  placed  at  Thirty- 
fourth,  though  there  were  many  empty  districts  south 
of  that  line.  Madison  Square  had  just  been  laid  out. 
The  nineteenth  and  twentieth  wards  were  added  within 
a  twelvemonth.  Broadway  was  now  more  than  four  miles 
long  from  the  Battery  to  the  open  country,  and  along  its 
course  as  far  as  Bleecker  Street  old  residences  were  being 
ripped  apart  in  clouds  of  dust  to  make  way  for  stores. 
The  year  1850  was  that  in  which  the  time-worn  City 
Hotel  disappeared,  and  in  which  the  Astor  Place  Opera 
House  was  remodeled  for  business  uses.  Canal  Street 
was  extended,  and  Dey  Street  widened.  Almost  before 
men  realized  it  the  old  transportation  facilities  had  be- 
come inadequate,  and  in  1852-3  the  Third  Avenue  and 
Sixth  Avenue  horse  railways  began  to  carry  passengers. 
With  the  whole  lower  part  of  town  engrossed  by  trade, 
with  more  well-to-do  New  Yorkers  fleeing  northward  year 
by  year  for  light  and  air,  the  city  in  1852  undertook  the 
grading  of  Fifth  Avenue  from  Thirty-fourth  Street  to 
Forty-fifth.  The  New  York  which  thrilled  to  Jenny 
Lind's  singing  and  turned  out  a  quarter  of  a  million 
people  to  watch  the  military  procession  marking  Presi- 
dent Taylor's  funeral,  was  a  New  York  that  had  sud- 
denly bloomed  into  a  metropolis. 

In  this  thriving  city,  larger  than  Buffalo  to-day,  there 
was  not  a  single  open-air  recreation  ground  worthy  of  the 
name.  Dickens  had  remarked  in  1842  that  New  York's 
summer  climate  was  such  that  it  would  throw  a  man  into 

192 


NEW  YORK  A  METROPOLIS  193 

a  fever  merely  to  think  what  the  streets  would  be  but 
for  the  daily  breezes  from  the  bay.  It  was  a  smoky  city 
— Bryant  had  written  in  the  Evening  Post  of  1832  a 
striking  description  of  its  unwonted  brightness  when  the 
cholera  stopped  nearly  all  industry — and  it  was  ill- 
cleaned.  The  city  directories,  indeed,  listed  nineteen 
parks.  But  a  number,  as  Five  Points  Park,  Duane  Park, 
and  Abingdon  Square,  were  merely  places  where  the 
street  intersections  were  a  little  wider  than  usual.  Others, 
like  Hudson  Square  and  Gramercy  Park,  were  private 
property,  and  still  others,  like  the  Bowling  Green,  were 
padlocked.  The  whole  park  area  was  only  about  one 
hundred  and  seventy  acres,  and  the  grounds  open  to  the 
public  did  not  exceed  one  hundred  acres;  while  the  largest 
single  park,  the  Battery,  contained  only  twenty-one. 

The  first  proposal  for  a  large  uptown  park  was  made 
by  Bryant  in  the  Evening  Post,  and  that  journal  was  the 
sturdiest  of  the  fighters  for  what  eventually  became  Cen- 
tral Park.  It  was  a  bold  proposal,  for  which  public  senti- 
ment could  only  slowly  be  aroused.  In  Edward  H.  Hall's 
scholarly  history  of  Central  Park,  published  by  the  Amer- 
ican Scenic  and  Historic  Preservation  Society  in  191 1, 
the  plan  is  said  to  have  originated  with  Andrew  J.  Down- 
ing, editor  of  the  monthly  Horticulturist,  in  a  letter  con- 
tributed to  that  magazine  in  1849.  Charles  H.  Haswell, 
in  his  "Reminiscences  of  an  Octogenarian,"  also  gives 
Downing  the  credit,  saying  that  he  merits  a  statue  from 
the  city.  But  the  real  originator  was  the  poet-editor.  In 
1836,  Parke  Godwin,  taking  frequent  rambles  with  him, 
found  him  emphatically  expressing  the  opinion  that  the 
city  should  reserve  as  a  park  the  finest  area  of  woodland 
remaining  there,  since  in  a  few  years  it  would  be  too  late. 
Five  full  years  before  Downing's  letter,  on  a  hot  July 
day  in  1844,  Bryant  made  a  walking  trip  over  the  middle 
of  Manhattan  to  examine  the  adaptability  of  a  certain 
large  tract  for  park  purposes.  Upon  his  return,  he  wrote 
for  the  issue  of  July  3,  1844,  his  proposal,  heading  it 
"A  New  Park." 

The   city   the    afternoon   this    article    appeared   was 


194  THE  EVENING  POST 

streaming  out  to  spend  the  Fourth  at  neighboring  points. 
Some,  wrote  Bryant,  would  go  to  shady  retreats  in  the 
country;  some  would  refresh  themselves  by  excursions  to 
the  seashore  on  Staten  Island  or  the  river  front  at  Ho- 
boken.  "If  the  public  authorities,  who  expend  so  much 
of  our  money  in  laying  out  the  city,  would  do  what  is  in 
their  power,  they  might  give  our  vast  population  an  ex- 
tensive pleasure  ground  for  shade  and  recreation  in  these 
sultry  afternoons,  which  we  might  reach  without  going 
out  of  town."    Where?    He  answered: 

On  the  road  to  Harlem,  between  Sixty-eighth  Street  on  the 
south,  and  Seventy-seventh  on  the  north,  and  extending  from 
Third  Avenue  to  the  East  River,  is  a  tract  of  beautiful  woodland, 
comprising  sixty  or  seventy  acres,  thickly  covered  with  old  trees, 
intermingled  with  a  variety  of  shrubs.  The  surface  is  varied  in 
a  very  striking  and  picturesque  manner,  with  craggy  eminences, 
and  hollows,  and  a  little  stream  runs  through  the  midst.  The 
swift  tides  of  the  East  River  sweep  its  rocky  shores,  and  the  fresh 
breeze  of  the  bay  comes  in,  on  every  warm  summer  afternoon, 
over  the  restless  waters.  The  trees  are  of  almost  every  species 
that  grows  in  our  woods — the  different  varieties  of  ash,  the  birch, 
the  beech,  the  linden,  the  mulberry,  the  tulip  tree,  and  others; 
the  azalea,  the  kalmia,  and  other  flowering  shrubs  are  in  bloom 
here  in  their  season,  and  the  ground  in  spring  is  gay  with  flowers. 
There  never  was  a  finer  situation  for  the  public  garden  of  a  great 
city.  Nothing  is  wanting  but  to  cut  winding  paths  through  it, 
leaving  the  woods  as  they  now  are,  and  introducing  here  and 
there  a  jet  from  the  Croton  aqueduct,  the  streams  from  which 
would  make  their  own  waterfalls  over  the  rocks,  and  keep  the 
brooks  running  through  the  place  always  fresh  and  full.  .  .  . 

If  any  of  our  brethren  of  the  public  press  should  see  fit  to  sup- 
port this  project,  we  are  ready  to  resign  in  their  favor  any  claim 
to  the  credit  of  originally  suggesting  it. 

Bryant  referred  to  the  beauty  and  utility  of  Regent's 
Park  in  London,  the  Alameda  in  Madrid,  the  Champs 
Elysees  in  Paris,  and  the  Prater  in  Vienna.  By  the  offi- 
cial plan  for  New  York,  drawn  up  in  1807,  an  area  of 
two  hundred  and  forty  acres  had  been  reserved  between 
Twenty-third  and  Thirty-fourth  Streets,  and  Third  and 
Seventh  Avenues,  to  be  called  the  Parade ;  this,  however, 


NEW  YORK  A  METROPOLIS  195 

had  been  reduced  by  degrees  to  the  six  or  seven  acres 
of  Madison  Square.  At  the  beginning  of  the  century 
any  one  had  been  able  to  walk  in  a  half  hour  from  his 
home  to  the  open  fields,  but  it  now  seemed  that  all  Man- 
hattan would  soon  be  covered  with  brick  and  mortar. 

The  editor's  proposal  was  not  for  the  area  now  in- 
cluded in  Central  Park,  and  was  for  a  comparatively 
small  tract,  though  Bryant  had  understated  its  size — it 
contained  about  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres,  against  eight 
hundred  and  forty-three  in  Central  Park  to-day.  But  it 
would  be  a  magnificent  park  compared  with  any  then 
existing,  and  the  suggestion  was  sufficient  to  open  a  dis- 
cussion. Jones's  Wood,  as  the  tract  was  called,  was  the 
last  remnant  of  the  primeval  forest  on  the  East  River, 
as  wild  as  when  the  Dutch  had  settled  on  the  island.  It 
was  the  subject  of  many  a  tale  and  tradition  connected 
with  the  infant  days  of  the  colony,  and  was  reputed  to 
have  been  the  favorite  resort  of  pirates  who  descended 
through  Hell  Gate  and  landed  there  to  bury  their  treas- 
ure and  hold  their  revels.  The  first  John  Jones  purchased 
It  when  it  was  called  the  "Louvre  Farm,"  in  1803,  and  a 
son  by  the  same  name  succeeded  him.  In  time  it  became 
a  favorite  nutting  and  fishing  ground.  Anglers  would  sit 
In  the  shade  of  its  rocky  bluffs  and  overhanging  elms  and 
cast  their  lines  into  the  deep  waters  of  the  East  River, 
while  in  autumn  boys  would  wander  through  its  recesses 
clubbing  the  branches  above.  "What  a  place  of  delight 
Jones's  Wood  used  to  be  in  the  olden  days!"  exclaimed 
"Felix  Oldboy"  in  the  eighties. 

Nor  was  It  long  until  Bryant  himself  suggested  the 
alternative  scheme  for  a  central  park.  From  time  to 
time  he  recurred  editorially  to  the  subject,  now  expa- 
tiating upon  the  ever-increasing  need  for  a  city  breathing 
place,  now  pointing  to  what  European  cities  had  done. 
In  1845  h^  was  in  England.  From  London  he  wrote 
(June  24)  a  glowing  description  of  the  fresh  and  ver- 
durous expanse  of  Hyde  Park,  St.  James'  Park,  Kensing- 
ton Gardens,  and  Regent's  Park,  and  in  this  letter  he 
spoke  of  a  "central"  reservation  in  New  York: 


196  THE  EVENING  POST 

These  parks  have  been  called  the  lungs  of  London,  and  so  im- 
portant are  they  regarded  to  the  public  health  and  the  happiness 
of  the  people,  that  I  believe  a  proposal  to  dispense  with  some  part 
of  their  extent,  and  cover  it  with  streets  and  houses,  would  be 
regarded  in  much  the  same  manner  as  a  proposal  to  hang  every 
tenth  man  in  London.  .  .  . 

The  population  of  your  city,  increasing  with  such  prodigious 
rapidity;  your  sultry  summers,  and  the  corrupt  atmosphere  gen- 
erated in  hot  and  crowded  streets,  make  it  a  cause  of  regret  that 
in  laying  out  New  York,  no  preparation  was  made,  while  it  was 
yet  practicable,  for  a  range  of  parks  and  public  gardens  along  the 
central  part  of  the  island  or  elsewhere,  to  remain  perpetually  for 
the  refreshment  and  recreation  of  the  citizens  during  the  torrid 
heats  of  the  warm  season.  There  are  yet  unoccupied  lands  on  the 
island  which  might,  I  suppose,  be  procured  for  the  purpose,  and 
which,  on  account  of  their  rocky  and  uneven  surface,  might  be 
laid  out  into  surpassingly  beautiful  pleasure-grounds;  but  while 
we  are  discussing  the  subject  the  advancing  population  of  the  city 
is  sweeping  over  them  and  covering  them  from  our  reach. 

The  Evening  Post  repeatedly  pressed  the  park  project. 
Its  editors  had  the  more  faith  in  it,  they  said,  because 
while  New  Yorkers  were  somewhat  slow  in  adopting 
plain  and  homely  reforms,  they  were  likely  to  engage 
eagerly  In  any  scheme  which  wore  an  air  of  magnificence. 
They  wouldn't  take  the  trouble  to  keep  the  streets  clean, 
but  they  would  spend  millions  to  brfhg  a  river  into  the 
city  through  the  Croton  aqueduct,  forty  miles  long.  They 
wouldn't  sweep  Broadway,  but  they  would  cover  Black- 
well's  Island  with  stately  buildings,  some  of  them  not 
needed.  Bryant  had  in  this  way  prepared  the  ground 
when  Downing,  In  1849,  also  writing  from  London  and 
using  many  of  Bryant's  arguments,  published  his  appeal 
In  the  Horticulturist.  Downing,  like  the  poet,  had  no 
clear  or  fixed  Idea  of  the  limits  that  should  be  assigned 
the  new  park.  The  fundamental  requirements,  he  said, 
were  that  it  should  be  just  above  the  limits  of  building, 
should  be  spacious,  and  should  be  reserved  while  the  land 
was  yet  easily  obtainable.  Downlng's  letter,  followed  in 
1850  by  an  admirable  series  of  articles,  attracted  much 
attention.     But  thanks  chiefly  to  Bryant,  the  subject  was 


NEW  YORK  A  METROPOLIS  197 

now  familiar  to  all  interested  In  city  improvement.  In 
1850  Fernando  Wood  ran  for  Mayor  against  Ambrose 
C.  KIngsland,  and  both  warmly  advocated  the  establish- 
ment of  a  park.  KIngsland,  who  was  supported  by  the 
Evening  Post,  was  elected,  and  on  May  5,  185 1,  sent  the 
Common  Council  a  message  recommending  "the  purchase 
and  laying  out  of  a  park  on  a  scale  which  will  be  worthy 
of  the  city,"  but  not  indicating  a  definite  site. 

The  fight  was  now  well  begun;  and  when  opposition 
appeared  to  the  park  project  in  toto,  the  Evening  Post 
naturally  felt  that  upon  it  lay  the  chief  responsibility  for 
defending  the  compalgn.  The  Journal  of  Commerce 
attacked  the  scheme,  declaring  that  the  cost  to  the  tax- 
payer would  be  tremendous,  that  New  York  city  already 
owned  park  lands  worth  $8,386,000,  and  that  the  cool 
waters  and  green  country  surrounding  the  city  made  more 
unnecessary.  The  Post's  answer  was  contemptuous.  As 
for  the  cost,  the  money  spent  would,  like  that  laid  out 
upon  the  Croton  water  system,  be  an  economy  in  the  end. 
"Every  investment  of  capital  that  renders  the  city  more 
healthy,  convenient,  and  beautiful,  attracts  both  strangers 
and  residents,  and  leads  to  a  liberal  patronage  of  every 
department  of  trade."  The  fact  that  the  city  already  had 
eight  million  dollars  worth  of  park  area  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  question.  The  argument  was  as  absurd  as 
it  would  be  to  compute  the  area  covered  by  the  city 
streets,  estimate  their  value,  and  make  that  a  reason  for 
narrowing  the  Bowery  or  Broadway.  London  and  Paris, 
like  New  York,  had  waters  and  a  green  surrounding 
country  within  easy  reach,  but  no  Londoner  or  Parisian 
would  dispense  with  his  parks. 

Mayor  Kingsland's  message  was  referred  to  a  com- 
mittee of  the  Council,  which  recommended  that  Jones's 
Wood  be  selected,  and  the  Council,  adopting  this  recom- 
mendation, applied  to  the  Legislature  for  a  law  to  author- 
ize the  establishment  of  the  park.  In  July,  1851,  the 
Legislature  responded  by  passing  a  measure  to  allow  the 
city  to  take  possession  of  Jones's  Wood. 

But  by  this  time  it  was  believed  by  many  citizens  that 
the  160-acre  stretch  upon  the  East  River  would  be  insuf- 


198  THE  EVENING  POST 

ficient,  and  that  the  "range  of  parks  and  public  gardens 
along  the  central  part  of  the  island"  which  Bryant  had 
suggested  In  1845  would  be  preferable.  Downing  de- 
serves great  credit  for  his  Insistence  that  Jones's  Wood 
would  be  "only  a  child's  playground."  London,  he 
pointed  out,  already  possessed  parks  aggregating  6,000 
acres,  and  New  York  should  now  acquire  at  least  500. 
Such  a  tract  "may  be  selected  between  Thirty-ninth  street 
and  the  Harlem  River,  including  a  varied  surface  of  land, 
a  good  deal  of  which  is  yet  waste  area.  ...  In  that 
area  there  would  be  space  enough  to  have  broad  reaches 
of  park  and  pleasure-ground,  with  a  real  feeling  of  the 
beauty  and  breadth  of  green  fields,  the  perfume  and 
freshness  of  nature."  The  Common  Council  was  im- 
pressed, and  in  August  appointed  a  committee  to  ascer- 
tain whether  "some  other  site"  was  best. 

By  the  autumn  of  1851  three  main  parties  had  taken 
shape  upon  the  question.  A  large  and  influential  body 
of  business  men  wanted  no  park  whatever;  a  considerable 
group  of  citizens  would  be  satisfied  with  Jones's  Wood 
alone;  and  a  growing  number  wished  a  great  central  park. 
The  Evening  Post  wgs  for  taking  both  sites.  "There  is 
now  ample  room  and  verge  enough  upon  the  Island  for 
two  parks,"  wrote  Bryant,  "whereas,  if  the  matter  is 
delayed  for  a  few  years,  there  will  hardly  be  a  space  left 
for  one."  Having  again  and  again  expressed  its  hopes 
with  regard  to  Jones's  Woods,  it  now  published  glowing 
descriptions  of  the  Central  Park  area.  There  was  no 
part  of  the  island,  it  said,  better  adapted  to  the  purpose. 
"The  elevation  in  some  parts  rising  to  the  height  of  one 
hundred  and  forty  feet  above  tidewater,  and  the  valleys 
in  other  parts  being  some  forty  feet  below  the  grading 
of  the  streets,  a  richly  diversified  surface  Is  presented,  to 
which  a  great  variety  of  ornamental  and  picturesque 
effects  may  easily  be  given."  The  valleys  abounded  in 
springs  and  streams,  which  could  quickly  be  converted  into 
artificial  lakes,  while  the  Croton  aqueduct  could  supply 
water  for  fountains. 

By  the  efforts  of  leading  citizens,  City  Hall,  and  the 


NEW  YORK  A  METROPOLIS  199 

friendly  part  of  the  press,  the  Legislature  in  the  summer 
of  1853  was  induced  to  sanction  the  creation  of  both 
parks,  passing  two  separate  bills.  This  filled  those  who 
opposed  any  park  at  all  with  rage.  Admit  the  possibility 
of  two  huge  pleasure  grounds,  aggregating  perhaps  more 
than  a  thousand  acres?  "What  is  it,  in  effect,"  demanded 
the  Journal  of  Commerce,  "but  a  law  or  laws  to  drive  our 
population  more  and  more  over  to  Brooklyn,  Williams- 
burgh,  Staten  Island,  Jersey  City,  etc.,  by  creating  a  bar- 
rier half  a  mile  to  two  miles  wide,  north  and  south,  and 
occupying  half  the  island  east  and  west,  over  which  popu- 
lation cannot  conveniently  pass?  If  ever  these  projects 
should  be  carried  into  effect,  they  will  cost  our  citizens 
millions  of  dollars.  .  .  .  Small  parks  would  be  a  public 
blessing;  and  might  be  as  numerous  as  the  health  and  com- 
fort of  our  citizens  would  require,  but  a  perpetual  edict  of 
desolation  against  two  and  one  half  square  miles  of  this 
small  island,  might  better  come  from  the  bitterest  enemies 
of  our  city  than  from  its  friends."  On  the  contrary,  re- 
plied the  Evening  Post,  the  park  would  dissuade  residents 
of  Manhattan,  made  desperate  by  the  congestion,  dirt,  and 
noise  of  the  streets,  from  removing  to  greener  and  more 
spacious  districts  like  Brooklyn  and  New  Brighton.  Even 
after  the  parks  were  created,  the  island  would  offer  room 
for  four  or  five  million  people.  The  same  sort  of  skeptics 
had  assailed  the  Croton  project. 

Nor  did  the  Journal  of  Commerce  lack  help.  In  1854 
Mayor  Jacob  Westervelt  spoke  with  hostility  In  his  an- 
nual message  of  the  two  park  projects.  The  Central 
Park  enactment,  he  said,  reserved  six  hundred  acres  In 
the  center  of  the  Island,  "toward  which  the  flood  of  popu- 
lation is  rapidly  pouring";  while  Its  limits  embraced  "an 
area  vastly  more  extensive  than  is  required  for  the  pur- 
pose, and  deprives  the  citizens  of  the  use  of  land  for 
building  purposes,  much  of  which  cannot  be  judiciously 
spared."  As  for  Jones's  Wood,  It  ought  not  to  be  taken 
at  all.  "The  shore  on  the  margin  of  this  park  is  gen- 
erally bold,  affording  a  depth  of  water  invaluable  for 
commercial  purposes."      The  Evening  Post  denied  that 


200  THE  EVENING  POST 

the  tide  of  population  was  setting  toward  the  center  of 
the  island,  saying  that  it  moved  fastest  up  the  Hudson 
and  East  Rivers — an  historical  fact.  The  waterfront 
of  Jones's  Wood  was  probably  not  more  than  one  two- 
hundredth  of  the  island's  whole  margin.  "Can  we  have 
no  fresh  air,  no  green  trees,  no  agreeable  walks  and 
drives,  that  Smith  may  have  more  houses  to  let,  and 
Brown  and  Co.  have  less  distance  to  go  to  their  ware- 
houses and  ships?" 

The  endeavor  to  save  Jones's  Wood  failed  in  1854, 
and  for  a  time  it  seemed  likely  that  the  proposed  area  of 
Central  Park  would  be  decidedly  reduced.  A  member  of 
the  State  Senate  that  year  introduced  a  bill  for  slicing 
one-sixth  off  each  side  of  the  park  on  Fifth  Avenue  and 
Eighth  Avenue,  for  shortening  it  at  both  ends,  and  for 
"interspersing  the  park  into  suitable  squares  connecting 
with  each  other  but  on  which,  or  parts  of  which,  family 
edifices  may  be  erected."  This,  as  the  Evening  Post  said, 
was  simply  a  scheme  to  destroy  the  park.  It  could  under- 
stand "that  the  eye  accustomed  to  look  upon  the  dollar 
as  the  only  attractive  object  in  this  world,  would  not  find 
the  beauty  of  a  park  'materially  lessened'  when  behold- 
ing it  covered  with  rent-paying  brick  and  mortar;  but  the 
idea  of  'public  recreation'  among  dwelling  houses,  in  open 
spaces  like  Union  and  Washington  Squares  ...  is  too 
absurd."  When  hearings  were  held  this  same  month  (Jan- 
uary, 1854),  upon  Mayor  Westervelt's  proposals  for 
curtailing  Central  Park,  the  advocates  of  the  original 
limits  seemed  to  be  weakening.  The  Mayor's  supporters 
desired  a  park  of  about  one-third  the  area  originally  pro- 
posed, and  presented  a  petition  with  several  thousand 
signatures.  The  chief  spokesman  for  the  opposite  side, 
Samuel  B.  Ruggles,  indicated  his  willingness  to  consent 
to  a  less  drastic  reduction,  making  the  park  extend 
from  Sixth  Avenue  to  Eighth,  or  from  Fifth  to  Seventh, 
instead  of  from  Fifth  to  Eighth.  But  against  any  weak- 
ening whatever  of  the  plan  as  it  stood  the  Evening  Post 
protested  energetically.  In  the  heart  of  London  were 
more  than  1,500  acres  of  park,  it  said,  which  would  com- 


NEW  YORK  A  METROPOLIS  201 

mand  high  prices  for  building  lots,  yet  New  York  job- 
bers grumbled  over  sparing  700.  The  people  owed  it 
"to  the  thousands  coming  after  them,  who  will  before 
many  years  make  this  city  the  first  in  the  world  in  point 
of  size,  to  bequeath  them  pleasure  grounds  commensurate 
with  its  greatness." 

The  struggle  continued  until,  in  February,  1856,  fol- 
lowing a  favorable  court  decision,  Bryant  could  congrat- 
ulate the  city  that  it  had  been  won,  and  that  the  land- 
scaping of  Central  Park  might  begin  within  a  few 
months.  This  was  eleven  years  after  his  original  pro- 
posal. He,  more  than  any  one  else,  deserves  to  be  called 
the  father  of  the  idea;  though  Downing's  labors  in  pro- 
moting it  were  quite  as  great  as  his. 


II 

These  were  years  in  which  much  had  to  be  said  of  the 
defects  of  the  municipal  services,  and  especially  of  the 
police.  When  the  forties  began  there  was  no  force  for 
the  prevention  of  crime,  and  only  a  small,  underpaid 
watch  for  making  arrests.  Theodore  Sedgwick,  Jr.,  re- 
marked in  the  Evening  Post  of  September,  1841,  upon 
"the  frequency  of  atrocious  crimes" ;  why  was  it  "that 
brutal  crimes,  murders,  and  rapes  have  suddenly  become 
so  common?"  The  answer,  he  thought,  was  that  New 
Yorkers  elected  their  city  administrations  for  their  views 
upon  national  questions,  not  because  they  would  furnish 
efficient  government.  It  was  then  held  shocking  that  in 
less  than  two  years,  1838-9,  there  had  been  six  murders 
in  the  city  and  no  convictions.  On  the  Fourth  of  July  in 
1842  a  German  named  Rosseler,  who  kept  a  quiet  beer 
garden  on  Twenty-first  Street,  ejected  some  ruffians  from 
it;  and  two  days  later  they  returned,  burnt  his  house, 
destroyed  his  property,  and  almost  killed  a  neighbor 
whom  they  mistook  for  him.  The  Evening  Post  was 
moved  to  demand  "a  police  which  has  eyes  and  ears  for 
all  these  enormities,  and  hands  to  seize  the  offenders." 
Just  a  week  before  Mayor  Morris  called  upon  the  Legis- 


202  THE  EVENING  POST 

lature  (May  29,  1843)  ^"  ^^s  annual  message  to  provide 
an  adequate  police,  Bryant  penned  another  protest: 

We  maintain  a  body  of  watchmen,  but  they  are  of  no  earthly 
use,  except  here  and  there  to  put  an  end  to  a  street  brawl,  and 
sometimes  to  pick  up  a  drunken  man  and  take  him  to  the  watch 
house.  In  some  cases,  they  have  been  suspected  of  being  in  a 
league  with  the  robbers.  At  present,  we  hear  of  a  new  case  of 
housebreaking  about  as  often  as  every  other  day.  Within  a  few 
days  past,  in  one  neighborhood  in  the  upper  part  of  town,  two 
houses  have  been  broken  into  and  plundered,  and  an  attempt  has 
been  made  to  set  fire  to  another. 

Of  course  there  will  be  no  end  to  this  evil,  until  there  is  a 
reform  in  the  police  regulations — until  a  police  of  better  organiza- 
tion and  more  efficiency  shall  be  introduced.  Our  city  swarms 
with  daring  and  ingenious  rogues,  many  of  whom  have  been 
driven  from  the  Old  World,  and  who  find  no  difficulty  in  exercising 
their  vocation  here  with  perfect  impunity. 

"Our  city,  with  its  great  population  and  vast  extent, 
can  hardly  be  said  to  have  a  police,"  wrote  the  editor 
again  in  the  following  February.  But  immediately  after 
the  election  of  James  Harper,  the  publisher,  as  Mayor, 
a  force  of  200  patrolmen  was  organized,  a  number  soon 
increased  to  800.  When  Mayor  William  V.  Brady  in 
1847  proposed  abolishing  them  and  restoring  the  watch 
system,  the  newspaper  was  amazed.  The  night  watch- 
men had  never  arrested  any  one  when  it  was  avoidable, 
for  every  arrest  meant  that  the  officer  lost  half  of  the 
next  day  from  his  usual  work  testifying  at  the  trial.  The 
watch  had  never  stopped  a  public  disturbance — the  aboli- 
tion and  flour  riots  had  destroyed  property  that  would 
have  supported  a  police  force  several  years;  but  the 
police  had  quelled  several  incipient  outbreaks.  The 
Evening  Post  was  not  for  abolishing,  but  for  improving 
the  new  force.  One  of  the  reforms  it  sought  was  the 
clothing  of  the  men  in  distinctive  uniforms.  As  it  ex- 
plained again  and  again,  a  uniformed  policeman  could 
be  seen  from  a  distance  and  accosted  for  information  or 
help;  he  would  be  obeyed  by  rowdies  when  a  policeman 
out  of  uniform  would  lack  authority;  and  he  could  not 


NEW  YORK  A  METROPOLIS  203 

loiter  in  corner  groggeries.     This  salutary  improvement 
was  finally  effected  in  the  fall  of  1853. 

As  for  the  fire  department,  New  York  depended  upon 
the  volunteer  system  from  the  time  the  Evening  Post 
was  founded  until  1865,  and  at  no  date  after  Bryant's 
return  from  Europe  in  1836  had  his  journal  any  patience 
with  it.  There  was  never  any  difficulty  in  making  the 
force  large  enough;  when  abolished,  it  consisted  of  125 
different  hose,  engine,  and  ladder  companies.  The  objec- 
tion was  to  its  personnel.  Gangs  of  desperate  young 
blackguards,  said  the  Post  at  the  beginning  of  1840, 
assembled  nightly  near  the  engine-houses,  devoted  them- 
selves to  ribaldry,  drinking,  fighting,  and  buffoonery,  and 
not  infrequently  were  guilty  of  riots,  robbery,  and  as- 
saults upon  women.  They  levied  forced  contributions 
upon  storekeepers  to  buy  liquor  and  pay  their  fines  when- 
ever they  were  jailed.  At  conflagrations  they  carried  off 
whatever  movables  were  spared  by  the  flames.  The  vol- 
unteer system,  collecting  these  ruflians  in  various  ca- 
pacities, gave  them  the  opportunity  to  gratify  their  rest- 
less love  of  excitement,  destroyed  their  fitness  for  reg- 
ular employment,  and  rapidly  made  them  confirmed 
drunkards.  The  clanship  engendered  by  the  hostility  of 
the  different  companies  led  to  bloody  street  fights.  What 
should  be  done?  The  Evening  Post  recommended  "the 
prohibition  of  the  volunteer  system  by  penal  enactments" ; 
and  if  the  city  could  not  support  a  paid  force,  the  aban- 
donment of  the  field  to  the  insurance  companies. 

In  September,  1841,  the  Evening  Post  was  again  vig- 
orously denouncing  "the  desperate  scoundrels  nourished 
by  the.  fire  department."  These  denunciations  it  had 
ample  opportunity  to  keep  up  month  by  month,  for  the 
frequency  of  incendiarism  and  of  street  affrays  among 
the  volunteer  companies  was  appalling.  The  best  com- 
panies were  ill-equipped,  since  not  until  1856,  after  ob- 
stinate opposition,  were  really  powerful  fire  engines  intro- 
duced from  Cincinnati.  The  regular  firemen  were  accom- 
panied by  a  swarm  of  "runners"  and  irregular  assistants, 
many  of  them  known  to  be  guilty  of  arson.     Whenever 


204  THE  EVENING  POST 

two  rival  companies  wished  a  trial  of  skill,  a  fire  was 
sure  to  break  out  in  a  convenient  place.  The  subscrip- 
tions for  funds  circulated  among  shopkeepers  and  house- 
holders were  little  better  than  blackmail,  for  it  was  well 
known  that  those  who  withheld  contributions  were 
peculiarly  liable  to  fires.  In  their  deadly  feuds  the  com- 
panies, fighting  with  hammers,  axes,  knives,  and  pistols, 
furnished  the  morgue  and  the  hospitals  with  dozens  of 
subjects  a  year.  Thieves  frequently  started  conflagra- 
tions. We  read  in  the  Evening  Post  just  after  the  de- 
struction of  Metropolitan  Hall  (1854)  : 

At  the  fire  on  Saturday  night,  about  half  of  the  goods  that  were 
thrown  out  of  the  windows  of  the  La  Farge  Hotel,  it  has  been 
estimated,  were  carried  away  by  thieves.  The  inmates  of  the 
Bond  Street  House,  who  were  obliged  suddenly  to  decamp,  found 
afterwards  that  their  rooms  had  been  rifled,  and  all  the  valuables 
which  they  left  behind  carried  away.  .  .  . 

There  is  no  city  in  the  world  where  the  thefts  committed  at 
fires  are  so  many  and  so  considerable  as  with  us.  The  rogues 
have  an  organization  which  brings  them  in  an  instant  to  the 
spot,  the  goods  are  passed  rapidly  from  hand  to  hand,  and  dis- 
appear forever.    A  large  fire  is  a  windfall  to  the  whole  tribe. 

Cincinnati  the  previous  year,  as  the  Post  said,  had 
substituted  a  paid  fire  department  for  the  volunteer  sys- 
tem. It  was  disgraceful  for  New  York  to  depend  on  a 
violent,  licentious  body  which  was  educating  the  city's 
youth  in  turbulence  and  rowdiness  and  was  often  worse 
than  useless  when  the  firebell  sounded.  The  insurance 
companies  at  this  time  kept  eighty  men,  at  a  cost  of 
$30,000,  to  guard  against  fires,  and  many  merchants  and 
families  employed  private  watchmen.  But  relief  did  not 
come  for  more  than  a  decade. 

Similar  complaints  rose  constantly  from  the  Evening 
Post  regarding  the  foulness  of  the  streets.  It  said  in  the 
early  forties  that  they  ought  to  be  swept  daily,  as  they 
were  in  London  and  Paris,  and  by  machinery;  that  with 
New  York's  hot  summer  climate  and  the  popular  habit 
of  throwing  offal  into  the  gutters,  it  was  intolerable  to 


NEW  YORK  A  METROPOLIS  205 

have  them  cleaned  only  every  two  or  three  days.  In  1846 
it  called  the  neglect  "scandalous,"  the  dust  and  odors 
''Insufferable."  The  reason  why  horse-brooms  were  not 
employed  was  that  the  use  of  manual  labor  gave  employ- 
ment to  gangs  whose  votes  the  ward-heelers  wanted  at 
election  time;  but  really  no  men  need  be  thrown  out  of 
work — they  could  be  set  to  repairing  the  broken  pave- 
ments. When  the  Crystal  Palace  exhibition  was  held  in 
New  York  in  1853,  the  British  section  contained  two 
street-sweeping  machines,  one  of  which  not  only  gathered 
together  but  loaded  the  dirt.  The  machines,  it  was  true, 
could  not  vote,  but  by  their  use,  according  to  the  Evening 
Posfs  calculations,  the  cost  of  cleaning  New  York  might 
be  reduced  from  $330,000  a  year  to  between  $50,000 
and  $90,000.  Next  year  Bryant  gave  publicity  to  the 
experiment  of  John  W.  Genin,  a  Broadway  merchant, 
who  collected  $2,000  from  his  business  neighbors,  ob- 
tained horse-brooms,  and  at  an  expense  of  $450  a  week, 
for  a  month,  made  Broadway  from  Bowling  Green  to 
Union  Square  look  like  "a  new-scrubbed  kitchen  floor." 

Not  until  the  end  of  the  thirties  did  allegations  of 
corruption  in  the  city  government  become  frequent  in 
Bryant's  editorial  columns.  In  August,  1843,  we  find 
the  Evening  Post  beginning  the  complaints  against  the 
Charter  which  it  was  to  maintain  without  interruption 
until  the  early  seventies.  It  believed  and  continued  to 
believe  that  the  two  boards  of  aldermen  and  assistant 
aldermen,  soon  nicknamed  "the  forty  thieves,"  had  too 
much  power.  "They  are  at  once  our  municipal  legisla- 
ture and  our  municipal  executive;  in  part  also,  they  are 
our  municipal  judiciary;  they  are  the  directors  of  the  city 
finances;  they  are  the  fountain  of  patronage;  they  are  all 
this  for  the  greatest  commercial  city  in  the  western 
world."  Their  government  it  held  to  be  always  expensive 
and  arbitrary,  often  inefficient,  and  sometimes  dishonest. 

The  Post  supported  an  abortive  effort  to  amend  the 
Charter  in  1846,  and  in  1853,  after  Azariah  Flagg  as 
Controller  had  stripped  some  flagrant  extravagance  and 
grafting,  it  gave  its  voice  to  another  movement  which 


2o6  THE  EVENING  POST 

proved  successful.  Tweed  was  at  this  time  an  alderman. 
The  newspaper  charged  the  body  of  which  he  was  a 
member  with  selling  city  property  and  valuable  franchises 
for  nominal  prices,  and  then  by  its  control  of  the  courts 
quashing  all  efforts  at  prosecution.  When  by  a  smashing 
popular  vote  (June  7,  1853)  the  new  Charter  was  car- 
ried, abolishing  the  Board  of  Assistant  Aldermen,  and 
excluding  the  aldermen  from  sitting  In  the  courts  of 
Oyer  and  Terminer  and  of  the  Sessions,  the  Post  said 
that  "a  more  significant  and  humiliating  rebuke  was  never 
administered  upon  a  body  of  public  officers  in  this  State 
before."  It  little  thought  then  that  the  corruption  of 
the  past  was  but  a  trifle  to  the  corruption  coming. 

Bryant's  place  as  the  foremost  citizen  of  the  lusty 
young  metropolis  was  by  1850  becoming  secure.  He, 
Irving,  and  Cooper  were  universally  regarded  as  the 
country's  greatest  literary  men.  Irving  was  passing  his 
final  placid  years  at  Sunnyslde;  Cooper  on  Otsego  Lake, 
one  of  the  most  quarrelsome  men  in  the  country,  was  near 
the  end  of  his  stormy  career.  The  city  heard  of  them 
only  occasionally.  But  Bryant  was  in  the  prime  of  life, 
seen  almost  daily  on  the  streets,  and  heard  upon  every 
passing  question.  In  the  late  forties  he  began  to  be  known 
as  a  speaker  upon  public  occasions.  He  delivered  his 
eulogy  upon  the  artist  Cole  in  1848  with  much  nervous- 
ness, but  by  185 1,  when  he  presided  over  the  press  ban- 
quet to  Kossuth,  he  had  acquired  self-confidence  and  ease. 
Thereafter  he  was  In  constant  demand  for  addresses  to 
all  kinds  of  audiences — literary  groups,  the  New  York 
Historical  Society,  the  Scotch  when  they  celebrated  the 
centenary  of  Burns's  birth,  the  Germans  In  their  Schiller 
celebration,  and  so  on.  His  Increasing  prestige  In  the 
city  was  naturally  reflected  upon  the  Evening  Post. 


CHAPTER  NINE 

LITERARY  ASPECTS  OF  BRYANT's  NEWSPAPER,    183O-1855 

For  reasons  fairly  evident  Bryant  seldom  used  the 
Evening  Post  for  the  publication  of  his  poems;  he  was 
too  modest,  and  the  magazines  of  the  day  too  earnestly 
besought  him  for  whatever  he  might  write.  In  1832  he 
brought  out  "The  Prairies"  In  It,  and  In  1841  "The 
Painted  Cup" — that  was  all  in  early  years.  He  had  no 
time  for  literary  essays,  even  had  he  felt  the  Post  the 
place  for  them.  As  for  the  new  books,  no  one  yet 
thought  that  dallies  should  give  them  more  than  brief 
notices;  moreover,  Bryant  disrelished  book-reviewing,  a 
task  against  which  he  had  protested  while  a  magazine 
editor,  and  he  never  quite  trusted  his  judgment  upon  new 
volumes  of  poetry.  The  Evening  Post  had  less  literary 
distinction  in  his  early  editorship  than  might  be  sup- 
posed; but  it  had  much  literary  interest. 

The  most  interesting  book  comments  of  the  thirties 
were  upon  British  travels  In  America.  England  did  not 
like  It  when  Hawthorne,  in  "Our  Old  Home,"  called  the 
British  matron  beefy.  The  United  States  did  not  like 
Dickens's  portrait  of  Col.  Jefferson  Brick,  praising  the 
ennobling  institution  of  nigger  slavery;  of  Prof.  Mulllt, 
who  at  the  last  election  had  repudiated  his  father  for 
voting  the  wrong  ticket;  and  Gen.  Fladdock,  who  halted 
his  denunciation  of  British  pride  to  snub  Martin  Chuzzle- 
wit  when  he  learned  that  Martin  had  come  in  the  steer- 
age. At  that  period  the  United  States  was  as  sensitive 
as  a  callow  youth.  "We  people  of  the  Universal  Yankee 
Nation,"  remarked  the  Evening  Post  In  1833,  "much  as 
we  may  affect  to  despise  the  strictures  of  such  travelers 
as  Fearon,  Capt.  Roos,  Basil  Hall,  and  Mrs.  Trollope, 
are  yet  mightily  impatient  under  their  censure,  and  mani- 
fest on  the  appearance  of  each  successive  book  about  our 

207 


/  - 


208  THE  EVENING  POST 

country  a  great  anxiety  to  get  hold  of  It  and  devour  its 
contents." 

Most  Americans  joined  in  indiscriminating  complaints 
over  the  animadversions  of  the  British  travelers.  A  few 
were  inclined  to  applaud  the  less  extreme  criticism  in  the 
hope  that  the  sound  portions  might  be  taken  to  heart. 
Bryant  thought  that  the  country  had  been  "far  too  sen- 
sitive" to  Basil  Hall,  calling  that  naval  traveler  *'a  good 
sort  of  prejudiced  English  gentleman,  who  saw  things  in 
a  pretty  fair  light  for  a  prejudiced  man."  He  had  a  high 
opinion  of  parts  of  Miss  Martineau's  travels,  though  he. 
wrote  his  wife  that  she  had  been  given  a  wrong  Impres- 
sion in  some  particulars  by  Dr.  Karl  Pollen  and  the  nar- 
row-minded Boston  abolitionists.  Twice  he  asked  Eve- 
ning Post  readers  (1832-3)  to  remember  that  although 
Mrs.  Trollope  might  be  shrewish,  she  was  also  shrewd, 
and  that  if  she  had  exaggerated  some  of  the  national 
foibles,  she  had  sketched  others  accurately.  In  her  ''Do- 
mestic Manners  of  the  Americans,"  he  believed,  "there 
was  really  a  good  deal  to  repay  curiosity.  That  work, 
notwithstanding  all  its  misrepresentations,  exaggerations, 
and  prejudices,  was  a  very  clever  and  spirited  production, 
and  contained  a  deal  of  truth  which,  however  unpalatable, 
has  at  least  proved  of  useful  tendency."  He  called  Capt. 
Marryat's  "Diary  in  America"  a  "blackguard  book," 
more  flippant  than  profound,  and  deplored  the  fact  that 
Charles  Augustus  Murray's  "Travels  in  America,"  which 
was  Issued  at  the  same  time  (1839),  and  was  the  work  of 
"a  well-disposed,  candid,  gentlemanly  sort  of  person," 
would  not  have  one-tenth  the  sale.  An  excerpt  from  the 
dramatic  criticism  of  the  Evening  Post  in  September, 
1832,  shows  how  effective  Mrs.  Trollope  actually  was  in 
improving  our  manners.  At  a  performance  by  Fanny 
Kemble,  a  gentleman,  between  acts,  assumed  a  sprawling 
position  upon  a  box  railing: 

Hissings  arose,  and  then  bleatings,  and  then  imitations  of  the 
lowing  of  cattle;  still  the  unconscious  disturber  pursued  his  chat 
— still  the  offending  fragment  of  his  coat-tail  hung  over  the  side. 


LITERARY  ASPECTS— 1 830-1 855  209 

At  last  there  was  a  laugh,  and  cries  of  ''Trollope!    Trollope! 
Trollope!"  with  roars  of  laughter,  still  more  loud  and  general. 

But  the  most  important  visit  of  a  foreigner  after 
Lafayette's  was  the  American  tour  of  Dickens  in  the 
early  months  of  1842.  It  is  of  special  interest  In  the 
history  of  the  Evening  Post  as  marking  the  active  begin- 
ning of  a  campaign  In  which  It  took  the  leading  part 
among  American  dailies — the  campaign  for  international 
copyright,  lasting  a  full  half  century. 

"The  popularity  of  Mr.  Dickens  as  a  novelist  throws 
almost  all  other  contemporary  popularity  Into  the  shade," 
the  Evening  Post  had  exclaimed  on  March  31,  1839, 
when  each  successive  Installment  of  "Nicholas  NIckleby" 
was  being  received  with  unprecedented  enthusiasm  in 
America.  "His  humor  Is  frequently  broad  farce,  and 
his  horrors  are  often  exaggerated,  extravagant,  and  im- 
probable; but  he  still  has  so  much  humor,  and  so  much 
pathos,  that  his  defects  are  overlooked."  His  striking 
originality  the  paper  also  praised.  In  1840-41  came  the 
"Old  Curiosity  Shop,"  which,  as  the  Post  noted,  was 
issued  in  numbers  as  rapidly  as  the  text  could  be  brought 
overseas,  and  caught  up  In  Boston,  New  York,  and  Phila- 
delphia by  piratical  publishers.  When  Dickens  spoke  at 
a  public  dinner  In  Boston  he  recalled  how  from  all  parts 
of  America,  from  cities  and  frontier,  he  had  received 
letters  about  Little  Nell.  There  were  few  educated 
Americans  who  were  not  acquainted  with  these  books,  or 
with  the  earlier  "Pickwick"  or  "Oliver  Twist";  and  the 
news  that  this  genius  of  thirty  was  to  visit  the  country 
sent  a  thrill  throughout  it. 

Before  the  end  of  January,  1842,  readers  of  the  Eve- 
ning Post  and  other  New  York  papers  learned  how  Dick- 
ens had  reached  Halifax  and  been  given  a  reception  in 
the  Parliament  House.  A  few  days  after,  the  Post  pub- 
lished an  account  of  his  welcome  in  Boston.  He  was  at 
the  Tremont  House,  the  halls  and  environs  of  which 
were  crowded;  one  distinguished  caller  followed  another; 
whenever  he  went  out  to  see  the  sights,  or  the  theater, 
he  was  given  an  ovation;  and  deputations  were  arriving 


210  THE  EVENING  POST 

with  Invitations  from  distant  cities  and  towns.  "Mr. 
Dickens,  we  fear,  is  made  too  much  a  lion  for  his  own 
comfort,"  observed  the  paper,  and  repeated  the  warning 
next  day.  On  Feb.  2  it  gave  nearly  an  eighth  of  its  read- 
ing matter  to  an  account  of  plans  for  the  great  Boz  Ball, 
as  laid  at  a  public  meeting  at  the  Astor  House,  presided 
over  by  Mayor  Robert  H.  Morris.  The  Park  Theater 
was  to  be  converted  into  a  ballroom,  and  its  alcoves  fitted 
up  into  representations  of  the  Old  Curiosity  Shop's  cor- 
ners, in  which  scenes  from  Dickens's  novels  might  be  illus- 
trated. On  Feb.  7  there  appeared  an  account  of  the  cere- 
monial Dickens  dinner  in  Boston,  with  the  happy  speech 
of  Mayor  Quincy.  An  invitation  to  a  public  dinner  in 
New  York,  signed  among  others  by  Bryant  and  Theodore 
Sedgwick,  had  meanwhile  been  dispatched  to  Dickens. 

The  Boz  Ball  on  the  fourteenth  was,  said  the  Evening 
Post  in  an  account  that  was  half  news,  half  editorial, 
"one  of  the  most  magnificent  that  has  ever  been  given  in 
this  city.  The  gorgeousness  of  the  decorations  and  the 
splendor  of  the  dresses,  no  less  than  the  immense  throng, 
glittering  with  silks  and  jewels,  contributed  to  the  show 
and  impressiveness  of  the  occasion.  It  is  estimated  that 
nearly  3,000  people  were  present,  all  richly  dressed  and 
sparkling  with  animation."  Dickens's  letters  bear  this 
out — "from  the  roof  to  the  floor,  the  theater  was  dec- 
orated magnificently;  and  the  light,  glitter,  glare,  noise, 
and  cheering  baffle  my  descriptive  powers."  The  great 
crowd  made  dancing  an  ordeal,  but  the  novehst  and  his 
wife  remained  until  they  were  almost  too  tired  to  stand. 
Some  of  the  newspapers  drew  heavily  upon  the  imagina- 
tion in  their  personal  references  to  Dickens.  They  told 
how,  while  a  charming  young  man,  bright-eyed,  spark- 
ling with  gayety  and  life,  his  freedom  of  manner  shocked 
a  few  fashionable  people ;  how  he  could  never  have  moved 
in  such  fine  society  in  England;  and  how  he  was  "appar- 
ently thunderstruck"  by  the  magnificence  about  him.  The 
Evening  Post  confined  its  personal  observations  to  the 
statement  that  Dickens  wore  black,  "with  a  gay  vest," 
and  that  his  wife  appeared  in  a  white  figured  Irish  tab- 


LITERARY  ASPECTS— 1 830-1 855  211 

inet  trimmed  with  mazarine  blue  flowers,  with  a  wreath 
of  the  same  color  about  her  head,  and  pearl  necklace  and 
earrings.  It  described  the  tableaux  in  full — Mr.  Leo 
Hunter's  fancy  dress  party,  the  middle-aged  lady  in  the 
hotel  room  that  Pickwick  invaded,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Manta- 
lini  in  Ralph  Nickleby's  office,  the  Stranger  and  Barnaby 
Rudge,  and  so  on. 

The  Boz  Dinner,  at  which  Bryant  was  a  leading  figure, 
received  no  less  than  three  columns,  crowding  out  all 
editorial  matter — pretty  good  evidence  that  Bryant  him.- 
self  wrote  the  report.  Washington  Irving  presided,  and 
made  a  few  halting  remarks,  toasting  Dickens  as  the  guest 
of  the  nation.  *'There,"  he  said  as  he  took  his  seat 
(Bryant  of  course  did  not  mention  this),  "I  told  you  I 
should  break  down,  and  I've  done  it."  The  Evening 
Post  gave  a  full  transcript  of  Dickens's  speech,  much  of 
which  was  a  tribute  to  Irving,  and  which  concluded  with 
a  reference  to  the  presence  of  Bryant  and  Halleck  as 
making  appropriate  a  toast  to  American  literature.  The 
dinner  closed  with  a  storm  of  applause  for  the  sentiment, 
"The  Works  of  Our  Guest — Like  Oliver  Twist,  We  Ask 
for  More";  and  the  Evening  Post  was  soon  reporting 
Dickens's  reception  in  Washington. 

Some  observers  were  puzzled  by  the  enthusiasm  of 
Dickens's  reception,  and  the  Courrier  des  Etats  Unis 
tried  to  account  for  it  by  several  theories :  first,  because 
Americans  were  eager  to  refute  the  accusation  that  they 
cared  nothing  for  art  and  everything  for  money;  second, 
because  they  supposed  Dickens  was  taking  notes,  and 
wished  to  conciliate  his  opinion;  and  third,  because  the 
austere  Puritanism  of  America,  restraining  the  people 
from  many  ordinary  enjoyments,  made  them  seize  upon 
such  occasions  as  a  vent  for  their  natural  love  of  ex- 
citement. 

Bryant  admitted  that  there  was  force  in  the  third  part 
of  this  explanation,  but  in  the  Evening  Post  he  took  the 
simpler  view  that  the  cordiality  originated  in  the  main 
from  a  sincere  admiration  for  the  novelist's  genius.  He 
pointed  out  that  Dickens's  excellences  were  of  a  kind  that 


t^ 


./ 


2  12  THE  EVENING  POST 

appealed  to  all  classes,  from  the  stableboy  to  the  states- 
man. "His  intimate  knowledge  of  character,  his  famili- 
arity with  the  language  and  experience  of  low  life,  his 
genuine  humor,  his  narrative  power,  and  the  cheerfulness 
of  his  philosophy,  are  traits  that  impress  themselves  upon 
minds  of  every  description."  But  his  higher  traits  were 
such  as  particularly  recommended  him  to  Americans. 
"His  sympathies  seek  out  that  class  with  whom  American 
y  institutions  and  laws  sympathize  most  strongly.  He  has 
found  subjects  of  thrilling  interest  in  the  passions,  suf- 
ferings, and  virtues  of  the  mass."  For  itself,  while  re- 
gretting a  certain  excess  of  fervor  in  Dickens's  welcome, 
the  Evening  Post  regarded  it  as  a  healthy  token.  "We 
have  so  long  been  accustomed  to  seeing  the  homage  of 
the  multitude  paid  to  men  of  mere  titles,  or  military 
chieftains,  that  we  have  grown  tired  of  it.  We  are  glad 
to  see  the  mind  asserting  its  supremacy — to  find  its  rights 
generally  recognized.  We  rejoice  that  a  young  man, 
without  birth,  wealth,  title,  or  a  sword,  whose  only  claims 
to  distinction  are  in  his  intellect  and  heart,  is  received 
with  a  feeling  that  was  formerly  rendered  only  to  con- 
querors and  kings." 

Dickens's  visit  was  not  merely  for  pleasure  or  observa- 
tion, and  in  his  endeavors  to  promote  the  cause  of  inter- 
national copyright  legislation  the  Post  was  already  keenly 
interested.  As  early  as  1810  Coleman,  under  the  head- 
ing, "Imposition,"  had  attacked  the  pirating  of  "Travels 
in  the  Northern  Part  of  the  United  States,"  by  Edward 
A.  Kendall,  an  Englishman  whom  Coleman  knew,  as  not 
only  "a  trespass  upon  the  rights  of  the  author,"  but  a 
fraud  upon  the  public,  since  the  edition  was  mutilated. 
In  1826  he  or  Bryant  had  commented  acridly  upon  the 
appearance  of  a  Cambridge  edition  of  Mrs.  Barbauld's 
poems  at  the  same  time  that  the  New  York  publishers, 
G.  and  C.  Carvill,  brought  out  an  authorized  edition  the 
'profits  of  which  went  to  the  author's  heirs.  Miss  Mar- 
tineau,  sojourning  in  America  in  1836,  had  taken  up  the 
question  with  Bryant.  Upon  returning  home  she  had 
sent  him  a  copy  of  a  petition  by  many  English  writers, 


LITERARY  ASPECTS— 1 830-1 855  213 

Including  Dickens  and  Carlyle,  to  Congress,  together  with 
copies  of  brief  letters  by  Wordsworth,  Miss  Edgeworth, 
Lord  Brougham,  and  others  Indorsing  It;  and  It  was  pub- 
lished with  hearty  commendation  In  the  Evening  Post. 

The  question  was  one  In  which  Bryant,  like  Cooper 
and  Irving,  had  a  selfish  as  well  as  altruistic  Interest.  All 
American  authors  were  trying  to  sell  their  wares  to  pub- 
lishers and  readers  who  could  get  English  books  with- 
out payment  of  royalty.  Each  of  Dickens's  works,  as  It 
appeared,  was  snapped  up  and  placed  on  the  market  for 
twenty-five  cents  or  less.  ''Barnaby  Rudge,"  during  his 
tour  of  this  country,  was  advertised  In  the  Evening  Post 
as  available,  complete,  In  two  Issues  of  the  New  fVorld, 
for  a  total  cost  of  sixteen  and  one-fourth  cents.  The 
next  week  It  was  Issued  under  one  cover  for  twenty-five 
cents.  The  novels  of  Bulwer,  Disraeli,  and  AInsworth 
were  presented  In  the  same  way,  as  was  the  poetry  of 
Hood  and  Tennyson.  Napier's  "Peninsular  War"  was 
advertised  In  the  Post  In  1844  by  J.  S.  Redfield  in  nine 
volumes  at  a  quarter  dollar  apiece,  and  MUman's  edition 
of  Gibbon,  with  his  notes  copyright  in  England,  by  Har- 
pers In  fifteen  parts  at  the  same  price. 

In  his  speech  at  the  Boston  dinner  "Boz"  boldly  set 
forth  the  injustice  which  he  believed  the  lack  of  an  Amer- 
ican international  copyright  law  was  doing  English 
writers.  Several  Boston  journals  were  offended,  while 
the  paper-makers  belonging  to  the  ''Home  League"  in 
New  York  met  to  express  opposition  to  any  new  copy- 
right legislation.  Bryant  at  once  (on  Feb.  11)  took 
Dickens's  side  in  the  Evening  Post.  If  the  American 
laws  allowed  every  foreigner  to  be  robbed  of  his  money 
and  baggage  the  moment  he  landed,  he  wrote,  and  closed 
the  courts  to  his  claims  for  redress,  the  nation  would  be 
condemned  as  a  den  of  thieves.  "When  we  deny  a 
stranger  the  same  right  to  the  profits  of  his  own  writings 
as  we  give  to  our  citizens,  we  commit  this  very  injustice; 
the  only  difference  is  that  we  limit  the  robbery  to  one 
kind  of  property." 

At  the  New  York  dinner  Dickens  advanced  the  same 


214  THE  EVENING  POST 

subject  in  a  few  words.  *'I  claim  that  justice  be  done; 
and  I  prefer  the  claim  as  one  who  has  a  right  to  speak 
and  be  heard,"  the  Evening  Post  quoted  him.  He  break- 
fasted with  Bryant  and  Halleck,  and  was  entertained  at 
the  poet's  home,  where  he  probably  spoke  to  him  in  pri- 
vate and  received  assurances  of  the  Post*s  support.  On 
May  9  there  appeared  a  letter  from  Dickens  "To  the 
Editor  of  the  Evening  Post'^  dated  April  30  at  Niagara 
Falls,  in  which  he  repeated  his  appeal.  With  it  he  en- 
closed a  short  letter  from  Carlyle,  wherein  the  Scotch- 
man thanked  him  because  "We  learn  by  the  newspapers 
that  you  everywhere  in  America  stir  up  the  question  of 
international  copyright,  and  thereby  awaken  huge  dis- 
sonance where  else  all  were  triumphant  unison  for  you." 
He  also  enclosed  a  much  longer  address  "To  the  Amer- 
ican People,"  signed  by  Bulwer,  Campbell,  Tennyson, 
Talfourd,  Hood,  Leigh  Hunt,  Hallam,  Sydney  Smith, 
Rogers,  Forster,  and  Barry  Cornwall.  This  eminent 
group  pointed  out  that  the  lack  of  an  international  copy- 
right agreement  was  a  serious  injury  to  American  au- 
thors, who  had  to  compete  on  unfair  terms  with  the  Brit- 
ish; and  it  argued  that  the  supply  of  standard  English 
books  in  a  cheap  form  would  not  really  be  diminished  by 
such  copyright  legislation.  Books  were  sold  at  a  high 
or  low  price  not  because  they  were  copyrighted  or  un- 
copyrighted,  but  in  proportion  as  they  obtained  few  or 
many  readers;  and  the  educational  system  of  the  United 
States  guaranteed  a  large  reading  public. 

Bryant  reinforced  these  letters  with  an  editorial,  re- 
markable as  an  expression  of  confidence  in  the  brilliant 
future  of  American  letters.  It  was  a  mistake,  he  main- 
tained, to  suppose  that  in  the  absence  of  an  international 
copyright  agreement  the  United  States  had  wholly  the 
best  of  the  situation: 

Within  the  last  year,  the  number  of  books  written  by  Ameri- 
can authors,  which  have  been  successful  in  Britain,  is  greater  than 
that  of  foreign  works  which  have  been  successful  in  this  country. 
Robertson's  work  on   Palestine,   Stephens's  Travels   in   Central 


LITERARY  ASPECTS— 1830-1855  215 

America,  Catlin's  book  on  North  American  Indians,  Cooper's 
Deerslayer,  the  last  volume  of  Bancroft's  American  history,  sev- 
eral works  prepared  by  Anthon  for  the  schools — here  is  a  list  of 
American  works  republished  in  England  within  the  year  for  which 
we  should  be  puzzled  to  find  an  equivalent  in  works  written  in 
England  within  the  same  time,  and  republished  here.  Our  emi- 
nent authors  are  still  engaged  in  their  literary  labors.  Cooper 
within  a  fortnight  past  has  published  a  work  stamped  with  all  the 
vigor  of  his  faculties,  Prescott  is  occupied  in  writing  the  History 
of  Peru,  Bancroft  is  engaged  in  continuing  the  annals  of  his  native 
country,  Sparks  is  still  employed  in  his  valuable  historical  labors, 
and  Stephens  is  pushing  his  researches  in  Central  America,  with 
a  view  of  giving  their  results  to  the  world.  We  were  told,  the 
other  day,  of  a  work  prepared  for  the  press  by  Washington  Irving, 
which  would  have  appeared  ere  this  but  for  the  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  securing  a  copyright  for  it  in  England,  as  well  as  here. 

He  drew  an  Inspiring  picture  of  the  effect  of  the  suc- 
cess of  these  authors  in  raising  up  aspirants  for  literary 
fame.  Irving  had  just  told  him,  he  wrote,  "that  if  Amer- 
ican literature  continued  to  make  the  same  progress  as  it 
had  done  for  twenty  years  past,  the  day  was  not  very 
far  distant  when  the  greater  number  of  books  designed 
for  readers  of  the  English  language  would  be  produced 
in  America." 

The  editor  continued  his  unavailing  efforts  for  a  sound 
copyright  law  year  after  year,  decade  after  decade.  He 
took  pains  to  do  justice  to  the  opposition,  recognizing 
that  it  was  by  no  means  all  mercenary,  and  that  econo- 
mists like  Matthew  Carey  advanced  arguments  worthy 
of  examination.  When  Dickens  published  a  letter  (July 
14,  1842)  in  the  London  Morning  Chronicle,  asserting 
that  the  barrier  to  the  reform  in  America  was  the  in- 
fluence of  "the  editors  and  proprietors  of  newspapers 
almost  exclusively  devoted  to  the  republication  of  popu- 
lar English  works,"  and  that  they  were  "for  the  most 
part  men  of  very  low  attainments,  and  of  more  than  in- 
different reputation,"  Bryant  hastened  in  the  Evening 
Post  to  call  this  a  misrepresentation.  He  knew  many  sin- 
cere and  respectable  men  who  condemned  the  interna- 
tional copyright  proposals  from  the  best  of  motives.    But 


2i6  THE  EVENING  POST 

the  cru§ade  was  always  near  his  heart.  When  in  1843  ^ 
petition  for  the  needed  law  was  presented  to  Congress 
by  ninety-seven  firms  and  persons  engaged  in  the  book 
trade,  he  supported  it,  and  he  did  the  same  when  ten 
years  later  five  New  York  publishers  addressed  Secre- 
tary of  State  Everett  in  behalf  of  a  copyright  treaty  with 
Great  Britain.  At  this  time  he  believed  that  the  chief 
obstacle  was  the  simple  Indifference  of  Congressmen; 
that  they  did  not  comprehend  the  question,  nor  try  to 
comprehend  it,  because  no  party  advantage  or  disad- 
vantage was  connected  with  it. 

In  the  thirties  and  forties  book-reviewing,  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  phrase,  was  almost  unknown  in  the  New 
York  daily  press.  The  chief  exceptions  to  the  rule  were 
furnished  by  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  who  in  the  middle  forties 
contributed  some  genuine  criticism  to  N.  P.  Willis's 
Mirror  and  other  journals,  and  by  Margaret  Fuller. 
Miss  Fuller,  writing  in  the  Tribune  for  more  than  a  year 
and  a  half  preceding  her  visit  to  Europe  In  1846,  per- 
formed a  signal  service  to  American  letters  by  her  courage 
and  acuteness,  for  her  criticism  of  Longfellow  as  too 
foreign  in  his  themes  and  of  Lowell  as  too  imitative  had 
a  salutary  effect  upon  those  poets.  But  Poe  and  Mar- 
garet Fuller  were  passing  meteors  In  New  York  journal- 
ism. Until  George  Ripley  and  John  BIgelow  joined  the 
Tribune  and  Evening  Post  respectively  in  1849  niere 
hasty  notices  were  given  most  books. 

The  newspaper  most  conspicuously  in  a  position  to 
pronounce  upon  new  volumes  was  the  Evening  Post,  for 
the  literary  judgment  of  Bryant  and  Parke  Godwin  was 
excellent.  But  Bryant  had  no  ambition  to  be  known  as  a 
critic.  Apart  from  his  shrewd  but  not  deeply  penetra- 
tive discourses  upon  Irving,  Cooper,  Verplanck,  and  Hal- 
leck,  he  wrote  only  a  half-dozen  extensive  literary  essays, 
the  best  known  being  his  really  fine  "Poets  and  Poetry 
of  the  English  Language,"  with  its  insistence  upon  a 
"luminous  style."  Moreover,  so  straitened  were  the 
paper's  circumstances  and  so  small  In  consequence  was  its 
staff,  that  he  and  Godwin  had  no  time  for  reading  and 


LITERARY  ASPECTS— 1 830-1 855  217 

reviewing.  "I  see  the  outside  of  almost  every  book  that 
Is  published,  but  I  read  little  that  Is  new,"  runs  a  letter 
of  Bryant's  to  Dana  In  1837.  Frank  avowal  was  fre- 
quently made  that  a  formal  review  was  not  within  the 
Evening  Post's  powers.  The  notice  of  Cooper's  "Wyan- 
dotte" (1843)  opened  with  the  remark  that  "we  have 
not  had  time  to  read  It,  but  we  are  Informed  by  the  pref- 
ace. .  .  ."  Five  years  later  Bryant  wrote  of  J.  T.  Head- 
ley's  "Cromwell" :  "We  have  not  time  In  the  midst  of 
the  continual  hurry  In  which  those  are  Involved  who 
write  for  a  dally  newspaper,  to  examine  the  work  with 
any  minuteness;  this  will  be  done  doubtless  by  professed 
critics." 

Slight  as  were  the  Post's  comments  upon  most  bodks, 
a  particular  interest  attaches  to  those  upon  current  vol- 
umes of  poetry,  for  Bryant  wrote  them;  his  associate, 
John  Bigelow,  has  expressed  surprise  that  Parke  Godwin, 
In  his  biography,  did  not  collect  them.  In  the  "Fable 
for  Critics,"  Lowell  speaks  of  Bryant's  "Iceolation,"  and 
biographers  of  both  Longfellow  and  Poe  have  accused 
him  of  indifference  to  these  younger  poets.  There  is 
much  evidence,  however,  as  in  Bryant's  admiring  letter 
to  Longfellow  In  1846,  that  the  charge  is  unfair;  and  a 
study  of  the  Evening  Post  files  Indicates  that  its  editor 
carefully  followed  the  work  of  his  juniors  in  poetry,  was 
glad  to  bring  It  to  public  notice,  and  was  a  good  deal 
more  prone  to  over-praise  than  to  underrate  it.  Bryant 
was  the  dean  among  American  poets,  the  first  to  gain 
fame,  and  regarded  by  Griswold,  Walt  Whitman,  and 
many  others  as  the  best  of  them;  as  the  Bryant  Festival 
In  1864  showed,  in  which  Holmes,  Lowell,  Emerson,  and 
Whittler  participated,  they  all  looked  up  to  him. 

Longfellow  was  the  next  eldest  of  the  truly  great 
poets.  In  the  pages  of  the  United  States  Review  in  the 
twenties  some  of  his  earliest  poems  are  found  side  by 
side  with  Bryant's.  In  later  life  he  acknowledged  to 
Bryant  how  much  he  owed  the  latter:  "When  I  look 
back  upon  my  early  years,  I  cannot  but  smile  to  see  how 
much  in  them  is  really  yours.    It  was  an  involuntary  Imita- 


v^ 


2i8  THE  EVENING  POST 

tion,  which  I  most  readily  confess."  Bryant  was  Inter- 
ested In  his  career  long  before  he  had  published  a  volume 
of  verse,  and  took  care  In  the  Evening  Post  to  give  his 
first  two  books,  the  prose  "Outre  Mer"  (1835)  and 
"Hyperion"  (1839)  ^ue  praise.  Of  the  former  he  said 
that  it  "Is  very  gracefully  written,  the  style  is  delightful, 
the  descriptions  are  graphic,  and  the  sketches  of  char- 
acter have  often  an  agreeable  vein  of  quiet  humor."  The 
latter  was  treated  a  little  less  warmly.  The  romance  is 
"tinged  with  peculiarities  derived  from  the  author's  fond- 
ness for  German  literature,"  Bryant  wrote,  and  its  strain 
of  deeper  reflection  "now  and  then  passes  into  the  grand 
dimness  of  German  speculation."  The  story  was  slight, 
and  had  little  attraction  for  those  who  wished  a  narrative 
of  crowded  incident.  But  the  verdict  as  a  whole  was 
favorable:  "upon  the  slender  thread  of  his  narrative  the 
author  has  hung  a  tissue  of  agreeable  sketches  of  the  dif- 
ferent parts  of  Germany,  supposed  to  be  visited  by  the 
hero,  delineations  of  character,  and  reflections  upon 
morals  and  literature." 

The  Evening  Post's  review  of  Longfellow's  first  vol- 
ume of  poems,  "Voices  of  the  Night"  (1839;  signed  J. 
Q.  D.)  was  short  but  flattering.  It  quoted  the  purest 
poetry  of  the  little  book: 

I  heard  the  trailing  garments  of  the  night 
Sweep  through  her  marble  halls ! 

and  its  criticism  emphasized  the  two  youthful  qualities 
which  should  have  been  most  emphasized,  simplicity  and 
freshness.  "These  voices  of  the  night  breathe  a  sweet 
and  gentle  music,  such  as  befits  the  time  when  the  moon 
is  up,  and  all  the  air  Is  clear,  and  soft,  and  still.  The 
original  poems  in  the  volume  are  characterized  by  the 
truest  simplicity  of  thought  and  style;  the  thin  veil  of 
mysticism  which  is  thrown  over  some  of  them  adds  only 
grace  to  the  picture,  without  tantalizing  the  eye."  Long- 
fellow's second  volume,  the  "Poems  on  Slavery"  (1842), 
came  as  a  shock  to  a  society  as  yet  not  inured  to  anti- 
slavery  doctrines.     The  editors  of  Graham's  Magazine 


LITERARY  ASPECTS— 1830-1855  219 

wrote  the  author  that  the  word  "slavery"  was  never 
allowed  to  appear  in  a  Philadelphia  magazine,  and  that 
the  publisher  objected  to  have  even  the  title  of  the  book 
mentioned  in  his  pages.  Till  a  later  date  Harper's  in 
New  York  similarly  objected  to  mention  of  the  slavery 
question.  But  Bryant  quoted  "The  Slave's  Dream"  in 
full,  and  said  of  the  sheaf:  "They  have  all  the  charac- 
teristics of  Longfellow's  later  poems,  adding  to  the  grace 
and  harmony  of  his  earlier,  a  vein  of  deeper  and  stronger 
feeling,  maturer  thought,  bolder  imagery,  and  a  more 
suggestive  manner." 

Thus  the  successive  issues  of  Longellow's  verse  were 
all  hailed  with  kindly  appreciation.  When  "Ballads  and 
Other  Poems"  appeared,  Bryant  praised  (Jan.  10,  1842) 
the  "grace  and  melody"  with  which  the  author  handled 
hexameters  in  a  translation  from  Tegner,  and  the  "noble 
and  affecting  simplicity"  of  the  result,  while  he  pro- 
nounced the  miscellaneous  poems  beautiful.  "Evan- 
geline," four  years  later,  inspired  the  publication  in  the 
Post  of  an  anonymous  burlesque  imitation,  next  the  ed- 
itorial columns,  which  it  is  almost  certain  is  Bryant's. 
He  wrote  such  humorous  trifles  till  his  latest  years,  and 
he  accompanied  this  with  some  remarks  upon  German 
hexametric  verse,  with  which  he  was  thoroughly  familiar. 
Dated  "in  the  ante-temperance  period  of  our  history,"  it 
showed  old  Tom  Robinson  seated  in  his  elbow  chair : 

Red  was  the  old  man's  nose,  with  frequent  potations  of  cider, 
Made  still  redder  by  walking  that  day  in  the  teeth  of  the  north 

wind. 
Warmth  from  the  blazing  fire  had  heightened  the  tinge  of  its 

scarlet ; 
While  at  each  broad  red  flash  from  the  hearth  it  seemed  to  grow 

redder. 

"Jemmy,  my  boy,"  he  said,  and  turned  to  a  tow-headed  urchin, 
"Bring  your  poor  uncle  a  mug  of  cider  up  from  the  cellar." 
Straightway  rose  from  the  chimney  nook  the  obedient  Jemmy  .  .  . 
Took  from  the  cupboard  shelves  a  mug  of  mighty  dimensions, 
Opened  the  cellar  door,  and  down  the  cellarway  vanished. 
Soon  he  came  back  with  the  mighty  vessel  brimming  and  sparkling, 


^^ 


220  THE  EVENING  POST 

Full  and  fresh,  the  old  man  took  it  and  raised  it  with  both  hands, 
Drained  the  whole  at  a  draught,  and  handed  it,  dripping  and 

empty, 
Back  to  the  boy,  and  winking  hard  with  both  eyes  as  he  did  it, 
Stretched  out  his  legs  to  the  fire,  while  his  nose  grew  redder  and 
redder. 

When  "The  Seaside  and  the  Fireside"  was  published 
In  1850,  Bryant  gave  especial  praise  to  "The  Building  of 
the  Ship,"  in  many  ways  the  best  poem  Longfellow  ever 
wrote.  An  unpoetlcal  subject;  but  "the  author  treats  it 
with  as  much  grace  of  imagery  as  If  it  were  a  fairy  tale, 
and  finds  in  It  ample  matter  suggestive  of  beautiful  trains 
of  thought."  He  quoted  the  fervent  closing  apostrophe 
to  the  nation  threatened  by  civil  war,  "Sail  on,  O  Union, 
strong  and  great!";  and  by  accident,  in  the  adjoining 
column,  part  of  the  Post's  Washington  correspondence, 
lay  a  paragraph  describing  the  sensation  aroused  by  the 
secessionist  manifesto  of  Cllngman,  a  fire-eating  North 
Carolina  Congressman.  Of  "Hiawatha"  in  1855  Bry- 
ant said: 

A  long  poem,  founded  on  the  traditions  of  the  American 
aborigines,  and  their  modes  of  life,  is  a  somewhat  hazardous  experi- 
ment. Longfellow,  however,  has  acquitted  himself  quite  as  well 
as  we  had  expected.  The  habits  of  the  Indians  are  gracefully  ideal- 
ized in  his  verses,  and  we  recognize  the  author  of  "Evangeline" 
in  the  tenderness  of  the  thoughts,  the  richness  of  the  imagery, 
and  the  flow  of  the  numbers.  ...  A  love  story  is  interwoven 
with  the  poem,  and  the  narrative  of  Hiawatha's  wooing  is  beauti- 
fully and  fancifully  related.  The  canto  of  The  Ghosts  is  wrought 
up  with  a  fine  supernatural  effect,  and  the  mysterious  departure 
of  Hiawatha,  with  which  the  poem  closes,  after  the  appearance 
of  the  first  rhessenger  of  the  Christian  gospel  among  his  country- 
men, is  well  imagined. 

Lowell's  first  two  volumes  of  poems  were  moderately 
commended.  "There  are  fine  veins  of  thought  in  Lowell's 
verse,  with  frequently  a  fresh  and  vigorous  expression," 
Bryant  remarked  of  the  second  (Feb.  12,  1848).  For 
Emerson  there  was  a  more  glowing  word  of  praise.  He 
V     is  "a  brilliant  writer,  both  in  prose  and  verse,  though 


LITERARY  ASPECTS— 1 830-1 855  221 

perhaps,  as  a  poet,  too  reflective,  too  subjective,  the  mod- 
ern metaphysician  would  call  It,  to  suit  the  popular  taste," 
Bryant  commented  in  the  Post  of  Jan.  4,  1847,  when 
Emerson's  first  collection  was  Issued.  "His  little  address 
In  verse  to  the  humble  bee  Is,  however,  one  of  the  finest 
things  of  the  sort — a  better  poem,  in  our  estimation,  than 
Anacreon's  famous  ode  to  the  cicada."  Whittier's  verse, 
he  thought  In  1843,  writing  of  "Lays  of  My  Home," 
"grows  better  and  better.  With  no  abatement  of  poetic 
enthusiasm,  his  style  becomes  more  manly,  and  his  vein 
of  thought  richer  and  deeper."  References  to  Poe,  ante- 
rior to  the  obituary  of  Oct.  9,  1849,  which  Bryant  did 
not  write,  for  he  was  then  abroad,  and  which  called  him 
a  "genius"  and  "an  Industrious,  original,  and  brilliant 
writer,"  are  few.  The  Evening  Post  had  remarked  in 
1845  that  he  was  at  least  within  a  "t"  of  being  a  poet, 
and  had  followed  his  lectures  that  year  at  the  Society 
Library.  The  Express  on  April  18  stated  that  he  had 
discoursed  at  length  upon  the  poets,  and  criticized  his 
views.  At  this  the  Post  professed  amazement,  for  its 
reporter  had  distinctly  heard  Poe  postpone  the  lecture; 
had  he  delivered  it  exclusively  to  the  Express? 

It  Is  pleasant  to  record  that  Nathaniel  Hawthorne's 
genius  was  recognized  and  forcibly  described.  Not  al- 
ways promptly,  but  always  emphatically,  the  Evening  Post 
recommended  "The  Scarlet  Letter,"  "TwIce^Told  Tales," 
"The  House  of  Seven  Gables,"  and  other  books  to  its 
readers.  It  expressed  the  hope  in  185 1  that  the  success 
of  the  first-named  "will  awaken  him  to  the  consciousness 
of  what  he  seems  to  have  been  writing  in  ignorance  of, 
that  the  public  is  an  important  party,  not  only  to  the 
author's  fame,  but  to  his  usefulness."  It  thought  that 
much  as  he  had  accomplished,  he  had  not  yet  done  justice 
to  his  powers.  Two  years  later  it  congratulated  him 
upon  the  leisure  that  his  appointment  as  consul  at  Liver- 
pool should  afford,  and  recalling  that  he  was  just  at  the 
age  when  Walter  Scott  first  appeared  as  a  novelist,  said 
that  it  saw  no  reason  why  the  latter  half  of  Hawthorne's 
life  might  not  be  equally  brilliant.     Unfortunately,  the 


V^ 


222  THE  EVENING  POST 

romancer  had  but  eleven  more  years  to  live.  To  quote 
three  short  comments  upon  books  by  other  great  prose 
authors,  one  of  which  appeared  in  1842,  another  in  1849, 
and  the  third  in  1850,  will  show  the  general  character  of 
such  notices,  and  illustrate  how  little  criticism  was  given : 

THE  DEERSLAYER,  or  THE  FIRST  WAR  PATH, 
Cooper's  last  novel,  is  one  of  his  finest  productions.  In  the  wild 
forest  where  the  scene  is  laid,  and  in  the  wild  life  of  the  New 
York  hunters  of  the  last  century  and  their  savage  neighbors,  his 
genius  finds  the  aliment  of  its  finest  strength.  The  work  is,  as 
he  observes,  the  first  act  in  the  life  of  Leatherstocking,  though 
written  last,  and  it  exhibits  this  singular  being,  one  of  the  most 
strongly  marked  and  most  interesting  creatures  of  fiction,  in  his 
early  youth,  fresh  from  his  education  among  the  Delawares,  and 
now  for  the  first  time  employing  in  war  the  weapon  which  had 
gained  him  a  reputation  as  a  hunter.  The  narrative  is  one  of 
intense  interest  from  beginning  to  close,  and  the  characters  of 
the  various  personages  with  whom  the  hero  of  the  story  is  associ- 
ated, are  drawn  with  perhaps  more  skill,  and  a  deeper  knowledge 
of  human  nature,  than  in  most  of  the  author's  previous  novels. 


THE  CALIFORNIA  AND  OREGON  TRAIL,  by  Francis 
Parkman,  is  a  pleasant  book  relating  adventures  and  wanderings 
in  the  western  wilderness,  and  describing  the  life  of  the  western 
hunters  and  the  Indian  tribes.  It  will  give  those  who  are  about 
to  make  the  journey  across  the  Rocky  Mountains  a  good  idea  of 
the  country  lying  between  us  and  the  regions  on  the  Pacific  Coast, 
and  of  the  savage  people  who  roam  over  it. 


EMERSON'S  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN.— We  have  re- 
ceived from  J.  Wiley,  of  this  city,  Emerson's  Seven  Lectures  on 
Representative  Men,  just  published  by  Phillips,  Sampson,  and 
Company,  of  Boston.  The  work  is  strongly  marked  by  the  char- 
acteristics of  the  author — brilliant  coruscations  of  thought,  instead 
of  a  quiet,  steady  blaze — an  avoidance  of  everything  like  a  coher- 
ent system  of  opinions — a  large  range  of  comparison  and  illustra- 
tion, with  an  occasional  haziness  of  metaphysical  conception,  in 
which  the  reader  is  apt  to  lose  his  way.  These  lectures  are  occu- 
pied with  the  delineation  of  the  characters  of  half  a  dozen  of  the 
greatest  men  that  ever  lived,  each  of  whom  Mr.  Emerson  makes 
the  representative  and  exponent  of  a  certain  class.     One  of  these 


LITERARY  ASPECTS— 1 830-1 855  223 

great  men  is  Plato,  on  whose  intellectual  character  the  author 
expatiates  like  one  who  is  truly  in  love  with  his  subject. 

It  was  deemed  Incumbent  upon  the  Evening  Post  to 
print  at  least  this  much  concerning  every  noteworthy 
American  book,  but  It  recognized  no  duty  as  regarded 
English  works.  Sometimes  a  volume,  like  Carlyle's 
"Chartism,"  would  receive  a  column  and  a  half,  while 
sometimes  Important  productions  would  get  never  a 
word.  The  Evening  Post's  criticism  of  Dickens's  "Amer- 
ican Notes"  Is  given  by  Parke  Godwin  In  his  life  of 
Bryant — a  criticism  praising  some  of  the  novelist's  fault- 
finding and  taking  exception  chiefly  to  his  remarks  on 
American  newspapers.  "Martin  Chuzzlewit"  was  re- 
viewed In  1843,  ^^^  the  American  scenes  were  pronounced 
a  failure  for  two  reasons.  "In  the  first  place,  the  author 
knows  very  little  about  us,  and  In  the  second  place,  the 
desire  of  being  vehemently  satirical  seems  to  unfit  him 
for  what  he  wishes  to  do,  and  takes  from  him  his  wonted 
humor  and  Invention."  But  no  later  work  by  Dickens, 
up  to  the  Civil  War,  seems  to  have  been  noticed. 

Yet  with  all  Its  shortcomings,  the  Evening  Post  main- 
tained a  literary  tone.  In  part  this  arose  from  the  pure 
English  and  the  alluslveness  of  Bryant's  editorial  style; 
In  part  from  the  unusual  attention  paid  to  magazines  and 
book  news ;  and  In  part  from  the  fact  that  literary  people 
were  attracted  to  It  because  Bryant  was  its  editor.  When 
G.  P.  R.  James  and  Martin  Tupper  visited  America,  they 
published  original  verse  In  It.  Miss  Catharine  Sedgwick, 
the  novelist,  sent  it  travel  sketches  in  1841  and  later. 
During  the  years  1834-41  Cooper  published  many  letters 
in  the  Evening  Post  upon  his  various  libel  suits  and  other 
personal  matters,  and  at  one  time  had  Bryant's  journal 
actively  enlisted  on  his  side.  "Cooper,  you  know,"  Bry- 
ant explained  to  Dana  In  a  letter  of  Nov.  26,  1838,  "has 
published  another  novel,  entitled  "Home  as  Found," 
rather  satirical  I  believe  on  American  manners.  A  notice 
of  it  appeared  in  the  Courier  newspaper  of  this  city,  a 
very  malignant  notice  Indeed,  containing  some  stories 
about  Cooper's  private  conversations.     Cooper  arrived 


224  THE  EVENING  POST 

in  town  about  the  time  the  article  was  published,  and  an- 
swered it  by  a  short  letter  to  the  Evening  Post,  in  which 
he  gave  notice  that  he  should  prosecute  the  publishers  of 
the  paper.  It  is  a  favorite  doctrine  with  him  just  now 
that  the  newspapers  tell  more  lies  than  truths,  and  he 
has  undertaken  to  reform  the  practice,  so  far  as  what 
they  say  respects  him  personally."  Webb's  attack  was 
said  to  have  been  occasioned  by  Cooper's  having  cut  his 
acquaintance.  The  Evening  Post  denounced  it  as  pro- 
ceeding from  personal  pique,  "grossly  malignant,"  and 
"swaggering  and  silly" ;  and  in  the  spring  of  1841  Cooper 
sent  the  Post  reams  of  controversial  material. 

Walt  Whitman  earned  Bryant's  grateful  notice  by  his 
journalistic  activities  in  Brooklyn  in  behalf  of  the  "Barn- 
burner" Democracy,  and  was  praised  for  his  tales  in  the 
Democratic  Review,  one  of  which  the  Evening  Post  re- 
printed (1842).  During  1851  he  contributed  five  arti- 
cles. The  first,  called  "Something  About  Art  and  Brook- 
lyn Artists,"  eulogized  the  paintings  of  several  obscure 
men,  and  the  second,  "A  Letter  From  Brooklyn,"  told  of 
the  changes  across  the  East  River — how  Bergen  Hill 
was  nearly  leveled,  a  huge  tract  had  been  reclaimed  from 
the  sea  near  the  Atlantic  Dock,  and  Fifth  Avenue  was 
still  unpaved  and  neglected.  Whitman  went  down  to  the 
eastern  end  of  Long  Island  that  summer,  for,  as  he  wrote 
the  Post,  "I  .  .  .  like  it  far  better  than  I  could  ever  like 
Saratoga  or  Newport."  In  two  June  letters  from 
Paumanok  he  described  the  joy  of  bathing  in  the  clear, 
cold  water,  derided  the  stiff  ceremoniousness  of  city 
boarders,  gave  some  good  advice  to  boarding-house 
keepers,  and  depicted  two  old  natives  of  Marion  and 
Rocky  Point,  "Uncle  Dan'l"  and  "Aunt  Rebby."  Upon 
his  return  he  sent  a  rather  rhapsodic  description  of  the 
opera  at  Castle  Garden,  with  Bettini  singing.  It  does 
not  appear  that  Bryant  had  any  personal  interest  in 
Whitman,  and  it  was  unfortunate  that  no  effort  was  made 
to  extend  his  brief  connection. 

Something  should  be  said  about  the  Evening  Post's 
miscellaneous  columns,  a  wallet  into  which  was  thrown 


LITERARY  ASPECTS— 1 830-1 855  225 

a  wide  assortment  of  reprinted  selections.  Now  it  was 
a  chapter  of  Lord  Londonderry's  Travels;  now  Ellery 
Channing's  reminiscences  of  his  father;  now  an  article 
from  Fraser^s  on  old  French  poetry;  now  a  chapter  from 
Cooper's  "Wing  and  Wing";  now  Tennyson's  ''Godiva," 
Longfellow's  "Spanish  Student,"  or  Spence's  anecdotes 
of  Pope.  Much  might  be  said  also  of  its  reports  of  liter- 
ary lectures,  the  course  by  Emerson  upon  "The  Times"  in 
the  spring  of  1842  and  Holmes's  course  upon  modern 
poetry  in  the  fall  of  1853  being  especially  well  covered. 
Emerson  was  an  earnest  but  not  popular  speaker,  and 
the  writer  for  the  Post,  either  Bryant  or  Parke  Godwin, 
was  at  first  cold  to  him.  But  within  a  few  days  he  was 
remarking  that  the  addresses  grew  upon  one's  admira- 
tion. "Emerson  convinces  you  that  he  is  a  man  accus- 
tomed to  profound  and  original  thought,  and  not  dis- 
posed, as  at  the  outset  you  are  inclined  to  suspect,  to 
play  with  and  baffle  the  intellects  of  his  readers.  He  is 
eminently  sincere  and  direct,  strongly  convinced  of  his 
own  views,  and  anxious  to  present  them  in  an  earnest  and 
striking  manner."  Parke  Godwin  himself  early  in  the 
fifties  became  a  lyceum  star,  along  with  Holmes,  Curtis, 
Greeley,  Horace  Mann,  Orvllle  Dewey,  and  others. 

As  for  drama,  the  most  important  appearances  oc- 
curred, and  the  most  important  criticism  was  written, 
while  Leggett  was  one  of  the  editors.  Leggett,  as  Abram 
C.  Dayton  tells  us  in  "Last  Days  of  Knickerbocker  Life," 
was  regarded  as  the  especial  champion  of  Edwin  For- 
rest, who  had  made  his  debut  in  1826,  and  who  was  a 
warm  favorite  with  the  "Bowery  Boys"  and  all  other 
lovers  of  florid,  stentorian  acting.  Certainly  Leggett 
praised  him  highly  and  constantly  in  the  Evening  Post. 
In  1834  a  gold  medal  was  presented  Forrest  by  a  com- 
mittee including  Bryant  and  Leggett,  who  recalled  in  the 
newspaper  how  he  had  come  to  the  city  quite  unknown, 
and  had  given  the  first  electrifying  demonstration  of  his 
powers  when  he  consented,  as  an  act  of  kindness  to  a 
poor  actor,  to  appear  at  a  benefit  as  Othello. 

When  on  Sept.   18,   1832,  Charles  Kemble  made  his 


226  THE  EVENING  POST 

first  American  appearance  as  Hamlet,  he  was  honored 
with  the  longest  dramatic  criticism  in  the  journal's  his- 
tory, almost  three  and  a  half  columns.  His  towering, 
manly  form,  his  Roman  face,  and  his  histrionic  ability 
impressed  Leggett,  who  thought  that  while  he  did  not 
have  the  flashes  of  dazzling  brilliance  that  Kean  had,  his 
grace,  ease,  and  elegance  almost  atoned  for  the  lack,  and 
would  have  a  good  effect  upon  American  acting.  Fanny 
Kemble  made  her  bow  the  following  night,  and  was  at 
once  hailed  as  displaying  "an  intensity  and  truth  never, 
we  believe,  yet  exhibited  by  an  actress  in  America,  cer- 
tainly never  by  one  so  young."  Later,  after  seeing  the 
two  in  more  performances,  Leggett  concluded  that  they 
were  admirable  in  comedy,  but  uneven  in  tragedy. 

Bryant's  interest  in  the  theater  was  mainly  a  literary 
interest,  yet  he  seems  to  have  been  the  writer  of  a  series 
of  editorials  in  1847,  arguing  for  an  American  theater. 
He  spoke  of  the  new  Broadway  Theater,  and  the  sailing 
of  the  manager  to  England  to  engage  talent.  Why  sup- 
ply the  new  stage  from  abroad?  protested  the  Evening 
Post.  *'Is  it  to  be  merely  a  house  of  call  for  such  foreign 
artists  as  may  find  it  agreeable  or  profitable  to  visit  us,  at 
such  times  as  they  may  chance  to  select?  Or  is  it  to  be 
an  American  establishment  of  the  highest  class,  with  a 
well-selected  and  thoroughly  trained  company  perma- 
nently employed,  varied  by  star  engagements  as  a  bril- 
liant relief  to  the  sober  background,  and  enlivened,  from 
time  to  time,  by  ability  from  abroad?  Does  it,  in  a  word, 
propose  to  go  on  the  old  beaten  track  so  often  condemned, 
or  to  draw  a  line  for  a  new  period  ...  ?"  Bryant  had 
no  use  for  provincialism  in  any  form. 

But  when  the  sentiment  of  Forrest's  supporters  for  an 
"American"  theater  led  them  in  May,  1849,  while  their 
hero  was  playing  at  the  Broadway  House,  to  attack  the 
English  tragedian  Macready  at  the  Astor  Place  Opera 
House  in  a  bloody  riot,  the  Evening  Post  had  to  condemn 
their  conduct.  Its  liking  for  Forrest  himself  was  much 
cooled  a  year  after,  when,  following  his  separation  from 
his  wife,  he  attacked  the  author  N.  P.  Willis  with  a  whip 


LITERARY  ASPECTS— 1 830-1 855  227 

on  Washington  Square.  Two  days  later  Forrest  met 
Bryant  and  Parke  Godwin  walking  down  Broadway,  and 
furiously  demanded  who  had  written  the  Evening  Post's 
report  of  the  assault,  in  which  Forrest  was  said  to  have 
struck  Willis  from  behind.  Godwin,  who  thoroughly 
sympathized  with  Mrs.  Forrest  in  her  quarrel  with  her 
husband,  replied  that  he  was  the  author.  The  actor  then 
turned  upon  him  ferociously,  said  that  the  report  was  a 
d — d  lie  from  beginning  to  end,  that  he  would  hold  God- 
win responsible  for  several  things,  and  that  he  had  told 
Godwin  that  he  meant  to  cane  Willis.  *'I  repHed,"  God- 
win later  testified,  ''that  these  were  not  just  the  terms 
that  he  used,  and  that  he  told  me  formerly  that  he  meant 
to  cut  his  damned  heart  out;  to  which  Mr.  Forrest  mut- 
tered something  in  reply.  .  .  ."  So  much  for  the  man- 
ners of  the  fifties. 


CHAPTER  TEN 

JOHN  BIGELOW  AS  AN  EDITOR  OF  THE  ''EVENING  POST" 

In  the  closing  days  of  1848  John  BIgelow,  who  like 
Bryant  lived  to  be  called  "The  First  Citizen  of  the  Re- 
public," became  one  of  the  proprietors  and  editors  of  the 
Evening  Post.  His  official  connection  with  it  lasted  eleven 
years,  when  he  graduated  from  it  into  that  diplomatic 
field  in  which  he  won  his  chief  fame;  but  his  real  con- 
nection might  be  said  to  have  been  lifelong.  Bigelow's 
protracted  career  was  one  of  great  variety  and  interest. 
He  lived  in  the  lifetime  of  George  III,  Napoleon,  and 
every  President  except  Washington,  dying  in  191 1.  His 
first  prominence  was  given  him  by  the  Evening  Post,  and 
.thereafter  he  was  always  a  landmark  in  New  York  life. 
John  Jay  Chapman  wrote  inyi9io  that  he  "stands  as  a 
monument  of  old-fashioned  sterling  culture  and  accom- 
plishment— a  sort  of  beacon  to  the  present  age  of  igno- 
rance and  pretence,  and  to  *a  land  where  all  things  are 
forgotten.'  "  His  wide  culture  is  attested  by  the  variety 
of  his  books — a  biography  of  Franklin  and  a  work  on 
Gladstone  in  the  Civil  War;  a  treatise  on  MoHnos  the 
quietlst,  and  another  on  sleep;  a  history  of  "France  and 
the  Confederate  Navy"  and  a  biography  of  Tilden.  It 
has  fallen  to  few  of  our  ministers  to  France  to  be  so 
useful  as  he.  He  was  prominent  in  almost  every  great 
civic  undertaking  in  New  York  during  the  last  half  cen- 
tury of  his  life.  Withal,  his  fine  presence,  simple  dig- 
nity, and  courtesy  made  him  a  model  American  gentle- 
man. 

It  was  with  good  reason  that  Bryant  requested  him  to 
become  an  associate.  His  views  were  just  those  of  the 
Evening  Post.  He  was  an  old-school  Democrat,  but  a 
devoted  free-soiler.  He  was  such  a  confirmed  hater  of 
protection  that  in  later  years  he  called  it  "a  dogma  in  a 

228 


JOHN  BIGELOW  AS  AN  EDITOR       229 

republic  fit  only  for  a  highwayman,  a  fool,  or  a  drunk- 
ard," and  that  he  wanted  absolute  free  trade,  not  merely 
"revision  downward."  He  liked  the  pen;  from  his  first  , 
admission  to  the  bar,  he  tells  us,  there  was  never  a  time 
when  he  had  not  material  before  him  for  the  study  of 
some  subject  on  which  he  Intended  to  write.  In  1841,  at 
the  age  of  twenty-three,  he  contributed  an  article  to  the 
New  York  Review  upon  Roman  lawyers,  and  followed  it 
with  essays  In  the  Democratic  Review.  His  taste  for  the 
society  of  Intellectual  men  early  showed  Itself,  and  like 
Lord  Clarendon,  "he  was  never  so  content  with  himself 
as  when  he  found  himself  the  meanest  man  In  the  com- 
pany." He  finished  his  law  studies  In  the  office  of  Theo- 
dore Sedgwick,  Jr.,  where  he  first  met  Bryant;  he  became 
intimate  with  Professor  Da  Ponte,  another  of  Bryant's 
friends,  and  he  saw  much  of  Fitzgreene  Halleck. 

Bigelow  had  been  born  in  Bristol,  later  Maiden,  N.  Y., 
in  1 8 17,  where  his  father  had  a  farm,  a  country  store, 
and  several  sloops  plying  on  the  Hudson.  His  was  a 
good  Presbyterian  family,  of  Connecticut  stock,  pros- 
perous enough  to  send  Bigelow  first  to  an  academy  at 
Troy,  and  then  successively  to  Washington  College  (later 
Trinity)  In  Hartford,  and  to  Union  College.  While 
studying  law  In  New  York,  he  had  the  good  fortune  to 
join  a  club  of  estimable  young  men  (1838)  called  The 
Column,  many  of  whose  members  later  became  founders 
of  the  Century  Association;  to  this  body  Wm.  M. 
Evarts  was  admitted  In  1840,  and  Parke  Godwin  in  1841. 
Another  influential  friend  whom  Bigelow  made  in  1837-8 
was  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  then  a  young  lawyer  living  with 
an  aunt  on  Fifth  Avenue.  Tilden  often  wearied  Bigelow 
by  his  talk  on  practical  politics  and  other  subjects  In 
which  the  latter  had  no  interest,  but  their  relations  soon 
ripened  into  a  cordial  friendship.  In  1844  these  two, 
with  a  veteran  journalist  named  John  L.  O'Sullivan,  con- 
ducted for  a  time  a  low-priced  Democratic  campaign 
sheet  for  the  purpose  of  helping  elect  Silas  Wright  as 
Governor.  Probably  as  a  reward  for  this  service.  Gov. 
Wright  appointed  Bigelow  one  of  the  ^\t  inspectors  of 


230  THE  EVENING  POST 

Sing  Sing  Prison,  at  which  it  had  become  necessary  to 
check  notorious  abuses;  and  when  Bigelow  and  his  asso- 
ciates stopped  the  use  of  bludgeons  they  were  accused  of 
^'coddling"  the  prisoners  as  all  later  reformers  have  been. 

During  1845  young  Bigelow  wrote  many  editorials  for 
the  Evening  Post  advocating  the  calling  of  a  State  Con- 
stitutional Convention,  and  asking  for  changes  in  the 
judiciary  which  that  body  actually  made.  In  the  spring 
of  1847  Bryant,  wishing  to  train  some  one  to  succeed 
him,  asked  the  young  man  to  enter  the  office,  but  did  not 
make  an  acceptable  offer.  A  year  and  a  half  later  he 
renewed  the  proposal  through  Tilden,  saying  that  he 
would  give  a  liberal  compensation,  and  that  when  one  of 
the  partners,  William  G.  Boggs,  who  had  charge  of  the 
publishing,  retired,  he  might  come  into  the  firm.  Bige- 
low was  pleased.  "But,"  he  told  Tilden,  "I  might  as 
well  say  to  you  here  at  once  that  I  should  not  think  it 
worth  while  to  consider  for  a  moment  any  proposition 
to  enter  the  Evening  Post  office  on  a  salary.  Unless  they 
want  me  in  the  firm,  they  don't  want  me  enough  to  with- 
draw me  from  my  profession."  This  was  a  wise  refusal 
to  give  up  his  independence.  The  result  was  that  after 
negotiations  of  several  weeks,  Boggs  was  induced  to 
retire  at  once.  Bigelow  purchased  three  and  one-tenth 
shares  of  the  Evening  Post  (there  were  ten  in  all)  and 
two  shares  of  the  job  office,  for  $15,000,  taking  posses- 
sion as  of  the  date  Nov.  16,  1848;  later,  at  a  cost  of 
$2,100,  he  increased  his  holdings  to  a  full  third.  He  had 
very  little  money  saved,  and  none  which  he  could  spare, 
but  he  persuaded  the  large-hearted  lawyer,  Charles 
O'Conor,  to  endorse  his  note  for  $2,500,  while  he  be- 
came indebted  to  Wm.  C.  Bryant  &  Co.  for  the  rest. 

Like  Bryant,  Bigelow  was  glad  to  escape  from  law  into 
journalism.  "I  have  never  for  one  instant  looked  back 
upon  my  former  employment,"  his  unpublished  journal 
runs,  "but  with  regret  for  the  time  lost  in  it.  I  do  not 
mean  that  all  my  time  was  lost;  on  the  contrary,  I  am 
satisfied  that  my  discipline  at  the  bar  gives  me  important 
advantages  over  most  of  my  associates  in  the  editorial 


JOHN  BIGELOW  AS  AN  EDITOR       231 

calling.  But  I  was  not  progressing  mentally  for  the  last 
two  years  of  my  practice,  though  I  did  in  professional 
position."   Financially,  the  exchange  was  a  fortunate  one. 

At  once  BIgelow  showed  marked  journalistic  aptitude. 
He  brought  a  lightness  of  touch  to  his  writing  that  was 
as  valuable  as  his  cultivation  and  good  judgment.  One 
early  evidence  of  this  was  a  weekly  series  of  interviews 
with  a  "Jersey  ferryman,"  purporting  to  be  snatches  of 
political  gossip  which  this  illiterate  but  shrewd  fellow 
picked  up  from  Congressmen,  Governors,  and  other  pub- 
lic men  whom  he  carried  over  the  river.  It  enabled  BIge- 
low to  give  readers  the  benefit  of  Inside  Information  ob- 
tained from  Tllden,  O'Conor,  John  Van  Buren,  Charles 
Sumner  (a  constant  correspondent  of  Bigelow's),  and  the 
free-soil  leaders  generally.  His  enterprise  was  equally 
marked.  In  1850,  nettled  by  the  assertion  of  slavery 
men  that  since  the  British  Emancipation  Act  the  Island 
of  Jamaica  had  relapsed  into  barbarism,  he  spent  three 
weeks  there  making  observations,  and  wrote  an  admirable 
series  of  letters  to  the  Evening  Post.  This  refutation  of 
the  slavery  arguments  attracted  attention  In  England. 
Early  In  1854,  when  it  was  necessary  to  give  shape  to  the 
Inchoate  elements  of  the  Republican  party  by  finding  a 
candidate,  he  wrote  a  campaign  biography  of  Fremont 
in  installments  for  the  Evening  Post,  the  first  chapter  of 
which  Jessie  Benton  Fremont  contributed.  During  the 
winter  of  1852-4  he  was  In  Haiti,  studying  the  capacity 
of  the  negro  for  self-government,  and  again  sending  the 
Evening  Post  valuable  correspondence.  His  book  upon 
Jamaica  was  for  some  time  considered  the  best  In  print, 
and  his  life  of  Fremont  sold  about  40,000  copies. 

Early  In  1851  BIgelow  began  publishing  a  series  of 
random  papers  called  "Nuces  LIterarlae,"  signed  "Friar 
Lubin,"  In  which  he  commenced  one  of  the  most  famous 
historical  controversies  of  the  time — the  controversy 
with  Jared  Sparks  over  the  latter's  methods  of  editing. 

President  Sparks  of  Harvard  had  issued  In  1834-7  (re- 
dated  1842)  his  twelve-volume  "Life  and  Writings  of 
George  Washington,"  the  fruit  of  years  of  research  at 


232  THE  EVENING  POST 

home  and  abroad.  In  the  fifth  of  the  "Nuces  LIterariae'' 
(Feb.  12),  BIgelow  remarked  that  he  had  been  greatly 
surprised  while  comparing  some  original  letters  by 
George  Washington  with  the  copies  given  by  Sparks.  He 
had  heard,  he  said,  that  Hallam — Hallam  had  chatted 
with  Bryant  In  England  In  1845 — had  commented  upon 
the  discrepancy  between  Jared  Spark's  version  of  the 
letters,  and  other  versions.  To  test  the  alleged  Inac- 
curacies, BIgelow  had  produced  the  recently  pubHshed 
correspondence  of  Joseph  Reed,  at  one  time  Washing- 
ton's secretary,  and  long  his  Intimate  friend.  Comparing 
the  letters  in  Sparks's  set  with  the  same  letters  in  the  two 
volumes  by  Reed's  grandson,  "to  my  utter  surprise  I 
found  every  one  had  been  altered,  in  what  seemed  to  me 
important  particulars.  I  found  that  he  had  not  only 
attempted  to  correct  the  probable  oversights  and  blun- 
ders of  General  Washington,  but  he  had  undertaken  to 
Improve  his  style  and  chasten  his  language;  nay,  he  had 
In  some  Instances  gone  so  far  as  to  change  his  meaning, 
and  to  make  him  the  author  of  sentiments  precisely  the 
opposite  of  what  he  Intended  to  write." 

BIgelow  proceeded,  in  this  paper  and  a  longer  one  a 
few  days  later,  to  state  his  charges  in  detail,  alleging 
scores  of  discrepancies.  It  was  the  sort  of  task  he  liked. 
Later,  while  Minister  to  France,  he  came  Into  possession 
of  the  MS.  of  Franklin's  autobiography,  and  by  careful 
examination  found  that  more  than  1,200  changes  had 
been  made  In  the  text  of  the  book,  as  published  by  Frank- 
lin's grandson,  and  that  the  last  eight  pages,  equal  in 
value  to  any  eight  preceding,  had  been  wholly  omitted. 
He  published  the  first  authentic  edition  of  the  classic,  and 
he  later  brought  out  an  edition  of  Franklin's  complete 
writings  which  superseded  Sparks's  earlier  collection. 
Now  he  alleged  that  when  Washington  had  written  that 
a  certain  sum  "will  be  but  a  fleabite  to  our  demands," 
Sparks  had  dressed  this  up  into  "totally  Inadequate." 
Washington,  he  said,  had  referred  to  the  "dirty,  mer- 
cenary spirit"  of  the  Connecticut  troops,  and  to  "our 
rascally  privateersmen,"  and  Sparks  had  left  out  "dirty" 


JOHN  BIGELOW  AS  AN  EDITOR       233 

and  ''rascally."  Washington  put  down,  "he  has  wrote 
...  to  see,"  and  Sparks  had  made  It,  "He  has  written 
...  to  ascertain."  Washington  referred  to  "Old  Put," 
and  Sparks  translated  this  into  "Gen.  Putnam."  "The 
Ministry  durst  not  have  gone  on,"  declared  Washington, 
and  this  appeared,  "would  not  have  dared  to  go  on." 
When  the  commander  wrote  that  he  had  "everything  but 
the  thing  ready,"  Sparks  left  out  "but  the  thing,"  by  which 
Washington  had  meant  powder. 

President  Sparks  was  ill,  but  the  Cambridge  Chronicle 
answered  for  him.  Would  not  Washington  have  cor- 
rected his  correspondence  for  the  press,  it  asked,  if  he 
had  known  it  was  to  be  published?  Bigelow  answered 
that  this  was  no  reason  why  Sparks  should  interpose 
between  the  great  man  and  admiring  later  generations. 
Washington  did  not  send  his  letters  to  the  press,  but  to 
friends  and  subordinates,  and  it  was  necessary  to  an  ac- 
curate estimate  of  the  man  that  we  learn  his  faults  of 
grammar  and  temper.  "It  is  a  great  comfort  for  un- 
pretending and  humble  men  like  the  most  of  us,  to  know 
that  the  world's  heroes  are  not  so  perfect  in  all  their 
proportions  as  to  defy  imitation,  and  discourage  the 
aspirations  of  the  less  mature  or  less  fortunate." 

The  eminent  president  of  Harvard  maintained  his 
silence,  though  the  Evening  Post  recurred  to  the  subject. 
In  June,  for  example,  it  mentioned  approvingly  a  project 
for  a  new  edition  of  Washington's  writings,  asserting  that 
"The  authority  of  Sparks  as  an  editor  and  historian  may 
be  considered  as  entirely  destroyed  by  the  criticism"  of 
Bigelow.  Early  in  1852  it  reviewed  the  sixth  volume  of 
Lord  Mahon's  History  of  England,  the  author  of  which 
censured  Sparks  severely  upon  the  ground  that  "he  has 
printed  no  part  of  the  correspondence  precisely  as  Wash- 
ington wrote  it;  but  has  greatly  altered  and,  as  he  thinks, 
corrected  and  embellished  It."  At  last,  faced  by  Lord 
Mahon  as  well  as  Bigelow,  President  Sparks  replied. 
On  April  2,  3,  and  6,  1852,  three  long  letters  by  him, 
later  issued  in  pamphlet  form,  were  published  in  the  Eve- 
ning Post,  explaining  the  exact  principles  on  which  he  had 


234  THE  EVENING  POST 

worked  as  an  editor.  "I  deny,"  he  said,  "that  any  part 
of  this  charge  is  true  In  any  sense,  which  can  authorize 
the  censures  bestowed  by  these  writers,  or  raise  a  sus- 
picion of  the  editor's  fidelity  and  fairness." 

It  was  an  effective,  though  not  a  complete,  answer  that 
he  made.  He  was  able  to  show  that  at  least  one  flagrant 
error  in  reprinting  a  letter  was  not  his,  but  that  of  Reed's 
grandson.  He  showed  that  many  of  the  alleged  garblings 
were  not  real,  but  arose  from  the  fact  that  Washington's 
original  letters  as  sent  out,  and  the  copies  which  his  sec- 
retaries transcribed  Into  his  letter-books,  differed.  Wash- 
ington himself  had  revised  the  manuscript  of  his  corre- 
spondence during  the  French  war,  making  numerous 
erasures,  interlineations,  and  corrections;  and  which 
could  now  be  called  the  genuine  text?  As  Sparks  ex- 
plained, the  omissions  over  which  Bigelow  had  grumbled 
were  unavoidable  because  of  the  necessity  of  compressing 
material  for  thirty  or  forty  volumes  Into  twelve.  But  he 
did  admit  taking  certain  editorial  liberties  which  would 
now  be  thought  improper.  "It  would  certainly  be 
strange,"  he  wrote,  "if  an  editor  should  undertake  to 
prepare  for  the  press  a  collection  of  manuscript  letters, 
many  of  them  hastily  written,  without  a  thought  that  they 
would  ever  be  published,  and  should  not  at  the  same  time 
regard  it  as  a  solemn  duty  to  correct  obvious  slips  of  the 
pen,  occasional  inaccuracies  of  expression,  and  manifest 
faults  of  grammar.  .  .  ." 

The  Evening  Post  was  anxious  to  do  President  Sparks 
justice.  It  admitted  his  industry  and  conscientious  devo- 
tion, shown  in  the  labor  he  had  spent  at  the  thirteen  cap- 
itals of  the  original  States,  wherever  else  he  could  find 
Revolutionary  papers,  and  in  the  public  oflices  of  London 
and  Paris.  It  recognized  that  the  demand  for  absolutely 
literal  transcriptions  was  a  new  one  in  the  field  of  schol- 
arship. But  to  this  demand  the  controversy  gave  a  de- 
cided impetus. 

Bigelow  scored  another  success  when  he  obtained  for 
the  Post  most  of  Thomas  Hart  Benton's  "Thirty  Years' 
View"  in  advance  of  its  issue  in  book  form.     No  more 


JOHN  BIGELOW  AS  AN  EDITOR        235 

effective  feature  in  the  middle  fifties  could  have  been 
imagined.  Benton  had  been  the  choice  of  many  for  the 
Presidency  in  1852;  his  great  contemporaries  in  Con- 
gress, Calhoun,  Clay,  and  Webster,  were  now  dead,  and 
men  were  eager  to  learn  secret  details  of  the  disputes 
and  intrigues  in  which  they  had  been  concerned;  his  pe- 
culiar uprightness,  his  energy,  and  his  long  public  expe- 
rience had  given  him  a  commanding  influence.  He  sent 
the  chapters  of  his  book  in  advance  to  the  Evening  Post 
because  he,  like  It,  had  been  a  devoted  Jacksonlan,  a  low- 
tariff  man,  and  a  hater  of  the  Bank,  and  was  now  at  one 
with  it  in  its  free-soil  views.  From  BIgelow's  private 
papers  we  learn  that  the  original  arrangement  (July, 
1853)  was  that  he  should  supply  an  Installment  weekly, 
and  be  paid  $10  a  column.  So  wide  was  the  interest  In 
the  work  that  Appleton's  first  edition  of  the  first  volume, 
in  1854,  was  30,000  copies.  It  aroused  much  pungent 
editorial  comment,  of  which  a  single  Instance  will  suflice. 
An  Installment  of  the  second  volume  which  the  Evening 
Post  published  in  June,  1855,  asserted  that  Calhoun  was 
favorable  to  the  Missouri  Compromise  when  It  passed, 
and  that  for  the  first  twenty  years  following  he  found  no 
constitutional  defects  In  It.  The  Richmond  Enquirer 
denied  this,  entitling  the  recollections  "Historic  Calum- 
nies," and  declaring: 

Instead  of  devoting  the  few  remaining  years  of  an  ill-spent  life 
to  the  penitential  offices  of  truth  and  charity,  Col.  Benton  expends 
his  almost  inexhaustible  energies  in  a  paroxysm  of  fiendish  passion ; 
and  when  he  should  be  imploring  mercy  for  his  manifold  sins,  in 
rearing  upon  the  grave  of  a  political  opponent  a  monument  to  his 
own  undying  hate  and  reckless  mendacity. 

But  the  Evening  Post,  with  the  aid,  among  others,  of 
former  Secretary  of  State  John  M.  Clayton,  had  no  diffi- 
culty in  proving  Benton  right. 

These  were  years  In  which  the  business  management  of 
the  newspaper  began  to  feel  markedly  the  hostility  of  the 
South.  Its  utterances  against  slavery  were  so  biting  and 
persistent  that  no  one  below  Mason's  and  Dixon's  line 


236  THE  EVENING  POST 

would  advertise  In  it,  and  many  Southern  buyers  boy-- 
cotted  New  York  merchants  who  patronized  it.  "Thou- 
sands of  little  merchants  and  traders  In  New  York  City," 
as  Bigelow  later  said,  "jealous  of  the  rivalry  of  the  other 
more  prosperous  houses  advertising  with  us,  were  In  the 
habit  of  reporting  them  In  the  South,  and  In  that  way 
our  advertising  columns  were  made  very  barren."  New 
Englanders  of  la^rge  resources  were  equally  offended  by 
the  paper's  low-tariff  views.  Bigelow's  business  acumen, 
reinforcing  Bryant's,  was  very  much  needed. 

Among  his  first  acts  was  the  reorganization  of  the  job 
printing  office.  The  Income  from  this  branch  of  the 
establishment,  the  first  half  year  of  BIgelow's  assistant- 
editorship,  was  but  $1,812.52,  and  for  the  last  half  year 
of  i860  It  was  $7,295.  This  revolution  was  wrought  by 
increasing  the  equipment,  hiring  a  new  foreman,  and 
opening  up  new  sources  of  business.  When  Bigelow  be- 
came a  partner  the  higher  courts  had  adopted  the  rule 
that  all  cases  reaching  them  on  appeal  should  be  printed. 
He  had  an  extensive  acquaintance  among  judges  and  law- 
yers, whom  he  gave  to  understand  that  the  Evening  Post 
would  do  legal  printing  more  satisfactorily  than  most  job 
offices,  and  that  It  would  always  have  the  work  done  on 
time.  Very  shortly  it  was  In  command  of  virtually  all 
the  legal  printing,  and  a  great  deal  of  other  business 
came  with  the  current.  So  competent  was  the  supervision 
exercised  by  the  foreman  and  bookkeeper  that  neither 
Bryant  nor  Bigelow,  after  the  start  was  made,  spent  a 
total  of  three  days'  time  in  this  office,  which  was  earning 
them  $10,000  a  year  or  more. 

An  equally  important  change  was  the  removal  In  1850 
from  the  cramped  quarters  on  Pine  Street  to  a  larger 
building  on  the  northwest  corner  of  Nassau  and  Liberty 
Streets.  The  old  property  had  afforded  room  for  only  a 
hand  press,  which  was  operated  by  a  powerful  negro. 
Since  the  daily  circulation  in  1848  was  but  about  2,000 
copies,  the  black  could  turn  off  the  edition  without  ex- 
haustion. In  the  new  home  it  was  able  to  have  a  large 
power  press.    At  first  an  effort  was  made  to  operate  it 


JOHN  BIGELOW  AS  AN  EDITOR        237 

with  one  of  the  ''caloric"  engines  which  Ericsson  had  in- 
vented in  1835  and  more  recently  perfected,  but  this  was 
found  inadequate,  and  one  of  Hoe's  new  "lightning"  en- 
gines was  installed.  Inasmuch  as  the  circulation  steadily 
rose,  as  the  size  of  the  newspaper  was  increased,  and  as 
the  weekly,  following  in  the  footsteps  of  Greeley's 
Weekly  Tribune,  became  an  important  property,  the  im- 
proved press  facilities  were  an  absolute  necessity. 

But  Bigelow's  chief  service  to  the  counting  room  lay 
in  his  insistence  upon  an  absolute  change  of  business  man- 
agement. When  the  new  building  was  purchased,  the 
man  who  had  succeeded  Boggs  as  publisher,  a  practical 
printer  of  no  education  named  Timothy  A.  Howe,  was 
entrusted  with  refitting  it,  and  his  incompetence  soon  be- 
came plain.  A  belief  that  his  general  business  capacity 
was  small  had  been  growing  upon  Bigelow,  and  he  finally 
resolved  that  the  existing  state  of  affairs  must  end: 

I  sent  word  to  Mr.  Howe  [Bigelow  said  late  in  life  in  an  inter- 
view with  Mr.  Oswald  Garrison  Villard]  that  I  wished  he  would 
meet  me  in  Mr.  Bryant's  office  at  such  an  hour  the  following 
day,  and  when  we  met  there,  I  said  to  them  both  that  the  business 
below  stairs  was  not  conducted  to  my  satisfaction;  that  I  did  not 
see  any  prospect  of  its  amendment  under  existing  arrangements, 
and  I  felt  that  we  needed  another  man  in  that  department.  That, 
if  I  remained  in  the  concern,  there  must  be  another  one  in  that 
department;  that  I  did  not  wish  to  crowd  Mr.  Howe  out,  but  I 
did  not  propose  to  stay  in  with  him  conducting  the  business,  and 
that  I  was  ready  to  name  the  figures  at  which  I  would  either  buy 
his  share  or  sell  my  own  if  he  was  ready  to  do  the  same,  but  that 
it  was  the  only  condition  upon  which  I  could  stay  in.  Well,  Mr. 
Bryant  did  not  look  up  at  all — he  hung  his  head.  Howe  was  as 
pale  as  a  sheet,  and  he  stammered  a  little  and  looked  at  Mr. 
Bryant  to  see  whether  there  was  any  comfort  there,  but  he  did 
not  find  any.  After  a  few  remarks  in  which  I  repeated  my 
story.  .  .  .  Howe  said,  "Very  well,  I  see  that  Mr.  Bryant  is  with 
you  in  the  matter,  and  I  will  go.  .  .  .  " 

The  result  was  that  Isaac  Henderson,  who  had  come 
to  the  Evening  Post  in  May,  1839,  as  a  clerk  at  $7  a 
week,  was  placed  in  charge  of  the  business  side  of  the 


238  THE  EVENING  POST 

paper;  and  In  May,  1854,  he  bought  one-third  of  it,  of 
the  building,  and  of  the  job  office.  He  paid  $17,083.33, 
agreeing  further  to  give  Howe  six  per  cent,  of  the  semi- 
annual dividends  for  the  next  five  years.  Whatever  Hen- 
derson's faults,  lack  of  shrewdness  and  industry  was  not 
among  them.  He  pushed  the  circulation  higher  and 
higher,  and  was  so  capable  in  attracting  advertisers  that 
even  during  the  panic  of  1857  the  columns  were  crowded. 
In  June,  1858,  the  combined  circulation  of  daily,  weekly, 
and  semi-weekly  was  12,334  copies  and  was  rapidly  grow- 
ing. "I  never  before  knew  what  it  was  to  have  more 
money  than  I  wanted  to  spend,"  Bigelow  wrote  his  chief, 
who  was  then  abroad.  Cooper  &  Hewitt  had  stopped 
their  advertising  in  consequence  of  articles  about  the 
shaky  credit  of  the  Atlantic  Telegraph  and  the  Illinois 
Central  Railroad,  in  which  this  firm  had  large  sums  in- 
vested, but  the  Post  could  afford  to  laugh  at  that.  The 
dividends  for  the  year  1848  for  the  first  time  surpassed 
$45,000,  and  this  golden  prosperity  was  rapidly  enhanced 
in  1859.  y 

"A  single  circumstance  will  perhaps  enable  you  to  form 
as  good  an  idea  of  how  we  stand  as  a  sheet  full  of  statis- 
tics," Bryant  wrote  Bigelow  on  April  11,  1859.  "Mr. 
Henderson  puts  on  a  severe  look  in  which  satisfaction  is 
mingled  with  resignation,  and  says  quietly,  'The  Evening 
Post  is  prosperous — very  prosperous.'  " 

Indeed,  Bigelow's  investment  of  1848-9  proved  the 
cornerstone  of  a  snug  fortune.  In  i860,  a  campaign  year 
in  which  the  circulation  boomed  again,  the  net  income 
was  no  less  than  $68,774.23.  That  is,  his  share  of  the 
profits — he  now  owned  a  full  third — was  very  de- 
cidedly more  than  the  $17,100  which  his  part  of  the 
newspaper  had  cost  him.  Immediately  after  the  election 
he  offered  Parke  Godwin,  who  was  seeking  a  place  in  the 
customs  service,  his  interest  in  the  newspaper  for  a  price, 
as  finally  agreed  upon,  of  $111,460 — a  bargain;  and 
since  he  was  willing  to  take  a  small  cash  payment,  God- 
win eagerly  accepted.  Bigelow  later  gave  three  reasons 
for  his  sudden  decision  to  leave  the  Evening  Post.     By 


JOHN  BIGELOW  AS  AN  EDITOR        239 

the  election  of  Lincoln  the  great  free-soil  cause  seemed  to 
have  triumphed,  and  he  felt  that  there  was  no  public 
movement  urgently  needing  his  pen;  he  wanted  leisure 
for  deliberate  literary  work;  and  he  believed  that  from  a 
dozen  years  of  journalism  he  had  received  all  the  intel- 
lectual nourishment  it  could  give  him.  "In  the  twelve 
years  that  I  had  spent  on  the  paper,"  he  wrote,  "I  had 
managed  to  pay  out  of  its  earnings  what  it  had  cost  me; 
I  had  lived  very  comfortably;  I  had  purchased  a  country 
place  of  considerable  value;  I  had  had  two  trips  to  the 
West  Indies,  to  which  I  devoted  five  or  six  months,  and  a 
tour  in  Europe  with  all  my  family,  of  nineteen  months; 
and  was  able  to  retire  with  a  property  which  could  not 
be  fairly  valued  at  less  than  $175,000." 

But  before  Bigelow  severed  his  connection  with  the 
Evening  Post  he  attempted  one  highly  interesting  service; 
he  tried,  with  temporary  success,  to  obtain  the  French 
critic  Sainte-Beuve  as  a  literary  correspondent.  He  was 
in  Europe  from  the  last  days  of  1858  until  the  late  spring 
of  i860.  In  his  unpublished  journal  for  Jan.  24,  i860, 
when  he  was  staying  in  Paris,  he  records  that  he  went  at 
one  o'clock  to  see  Sainte-Beuve  "and  to  conclude  an  agree- 
ment partially  negotiated"  on  behalf  of  the  newspaper. 
The  great  Frenchman,  fifty-six  years  old,  was  at  the 
height  of  his  fame,  having  just  been  made  commander 
of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  If  the  rate  of  pay  he  was 
willing  to  consider  from  the  Evening  Post  seems  small, 
we  must  remember  that  he  was  busy  with  his  "Causeries 
du  Lundi"  for  the  Moniteur,  and  that  he  probably 
thought  he  could  re-use  this  material  for  the  American 
journal.  Bigelow  ofiered  him  125  francs,  or  about  $25, 
for  each  letter,  stipulating  that  Sainte-Beuve  should  pay 
the  translator,  who,  Bigelow  thought,  ought  to  accept  $5. 
Sainte-Beuve  had  already  written  and  mailed  his  first 
letter,  and  he  made  no  immediate  demur  to  these  terms. 
Next  day,  however,  he  wrote  that  his  inquiries  had  con- 
vinced him  that  no  good  translator  would  do  the  work 
for  less  than  $10,  and  that  he  could  not  go  on.  Bigelow 
at  once  increased  his  offer  to  $30  a  letter,  of  which  $20 


240  THE  EVENING  POST 

was  to  go  to  Salnte-Beuve,  but  the  critic  persisted  in  his 
refusal.  The  compensation,  he  said,  was  adequate,  but 
he  was  too  old  for  such  a  burden  as  this  would  impose. 

Sainte-Beuve's  letter,  filling  two  and  a  half  columns 
with  its  5,500  words,  had  meanwhile  appeared  in  the 
Evening  Post,  under  the  heading  "Literary  Matters  in 
France.*'  The  greater  part  was  devoted  to  a  beautifully 
written  and  fine  critical  disquisition  upon  the  recently 
published  correspondence  of  Beranger,  but  prefixed  to 
this  were  several  paragraphs  of  general  comment. 
"French  literature  for  some  years  past  has  produced 
nothing  very  new  or  brilliant,"  he  wrote,  "especially  in 
the  department  of  poetry.  .  .  .  But  in  the  department 
of  history,  political  and  literary,  and  in  that  of  erudition, 
good  books  and  meritorious  monographs  have  been  writ- 
ten." Political  events  since  1848,  he  explained,  had 
thrown  many  men  into  a  retirement  favorable  to  literary 
pursuits — Villemain,  Guizot,  Remusat,  and  Victor 
Cousin.  In  closing  he  alluded  to  the  loss  the  Institut  de 
France  had  suffered  in  Macaulay,  and  added:  "The 
death  of  the  illustrious  Prescott  had  already  deprived  the 
same  learned  body  of  a  corresponding  member.  It  is 
thought  that  America  will  also  provide  the  member  to  be 
named  as  Prescott's  successor  {primo  avulso  non  deficit 
alter),  and  we  are  informed  that  some  influential  mem- 
bers of  that  academy  have  thought  of  Mr.  Motley,  whose 
admirable  historical  work  has  been  recently  introduced 
here  by  M.  Guizot." 

The  article  was  not  signed,  and  was  not  appreciated 
by  a  public  which  cared  nothing  about  Beranger.  Bryant 
grasped  this  general  indifference.  He  wrote  Bigelow 
that  the  letter  was  too  long,  and  that  Americans  were  not 
sufficiently  familiar  with  French  authors  to  have  that 
craving  for  anecdotes  of  their  lives,  conversation,  and 
correspondence  which  they  had  in  the  case  of  the  dis- 
tinguished names  of  English  literature.  He  always  dis- 
trusted an  article  his  wife  would  not  read,  he  said,  and 
she  would  not  read  this.  Probably  short  letters  of  not 
more  than  2,000  words,  sent  not  oftener  than  monthly, 


JOHN  BIGELOW  AS  AN  EDITOR        241 

and  dealing  with  topics  of  wide  Interest,  would — 
especially  If  signed  by  Salnte-Beuve — have  been  highly 
successful;  it  was  unfortunate  that  BIgelow,  when  Sainte- 
Beuve  Indicated  his  reluctance  to  accept  the  heavy  burden 
of  long  essays,  did  not  suggest  this  solution.  But  the 
Civil  War  was  at  hand,  and  the  columns  of  the  paper 
were  soon  crowded  to  bursting. 

BIgelow  was  appointed  consul  at  Paris  by  President 
Lincoln  soon  after  leaving  the  Evening  Post,  and  in  1864 
became  Minister  to  France.  From  Paris  during  the  war 
he  wrote  assiduously  to  Bryant,  and  was  able  to  supply 
much  information  of  editorial  value  regarding  the  French 
and  British  attitude  toward  the  North.  After  returning 
to  the  United  States,  until  Bryant's  death,  he  not  infre- 
quently contributed  to  the  editorial  page,  and  twice  re- 
fused an  active  connection  with  it.  In  1880  he  wrote 
Parke  Godwin,  then  editor,  making  inquiries  regarding 
the  purchase  of  a  share  in  the  paper,  with  a  view  to 
becoming  its  head,  but  did  not  push  them.  His  loss  at  a 
time  of  national  crisis  was  keenly  felt  by  the  Evening 
Post,  but  his  place  was  ably  supplied  by  Parke  Godwin 
and  a  newcomer,  Charles  Nordhoff. 


CHAPTER  ELEVEN 

HEATED  POLITICS  BEFORE  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

The  history  of  the  Evening  Post  for  the  decade  fol- 
lowing the  Compromise  of  1850  is  summarized  in  the 
names  of  its  greater  political  correspondents.  Thomas 
Hart  Benton,  besides  contributing  much  of  his  "Thirty 
Years'  View,"  sent  Bryant  occasional  memoranda  for 
editorial  use.  Gideon  Welles  began  contributing  in  1848, 
when  he  was  a  bureau  chief  in  the  Navy  Department, 
and  Salmon  P.  Chase  sent  occasional  unsigned  contribu- 
tions, and  more  frequent  comments  or  suggestions.  Both 
Benton  and  Welles  had  been  as  ardent  Jacksonian  Demo- 
crats as  Bryant,  and  both  were  free-soilers;  while  Welles 
and  Chase  became  founders,  of  the  Republican  Party  in 
Connecticut  and  Ohio  respectively.  The  Evening  Post, 
in  other  words,  remained  Democratic  till  early  in  Pierce's 
administration  it  found  that  Democracy  was  simply 
dancing  to  the  pipings  of  the  slavery  nabobs,  when  it  gave 
all  its  support  to  the  rising  Republican  movement.  It  is 
evidence  of  its  zeal  in  the  new  cause  that  Sumner,  more 
an  abolitionist  than  a  free-soiler,  became  an  ardent  ad- 
mirer of  the  paper.  He  wrote  Bigelow  expressing  his 
"sincere  delight"  in  it,  saying  that  its  political  arguments 
"fascinate  as  well  as  convince."  It  was  upon  his  recom- 
mendation that  William  S.  Thayer,  a  brilliant  young 
Harvard  man,  was  employed,  and  became  in  the  years 
1856-60  the  Washington  correspondent  whom  the  anti- 
slavery  statesmen  liked  and  trusted  most. 

In  the  sultry,  ominous  decade  before  the  Civil  War 
storm,  there  is  a  long  list  of  events  upon  which  the  opin- 
ions of  any  great  journal  are  of  interest.  What  did  the 
Evening  Post  think  in  1850  of  Webster's  Seventh  of 
March  speech?  How  in  1852  did  it  regard  the  dismal 
contest  between  Pierce  and  Winfield  Scott?    What  esti- 

242 


HEATED  POLITICS— 1 850-1 860  243 

mate  did  it  place  upon  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"?  What 
in  1856  did  it  say  of  Brooks's  assault  upon  Sumner,  and 
of  the  fierce  Buchanan-Fremont  contest;  and  what  the 
next  year  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision?  How  did  Bryant 
express  himself  upon  the  crimes  and  martyrdom  of  "Os- 
awatomie"  Brown?  Readers  of  an  old  file  of  news- 
papers for  those  tense  years  have  a  sense  of  sitting  at  a 
drama,  waiting  the  approach  of  a  catastrophe  which  they 
perfectly  foresee,  but  which  the  players  hope  to  the  last 
will  be  avoided. 

Bryant  in  the  campaign  of  1848  had  bolted  from  the 
regular  Democratic  ticket  along  with  the  other  ''Barn- 
burners" of  New  York.  The  nickname  referred  to  the 
Dutchman  who  burned  his  barn  to  exterminate  the  rats, 
for  they  were  accused  of  trying  to  destroy  the  party  to 
get  rid  of  slavery  in  the  territories.  It  was  impossible 
for  the  Evening  Post  to  support  the  regulars'  nominee, 
Lewis  Cass,  who  had  expressed  pro-slavery  views,  or  the 
Whig  nominee.  Gen.  Zachary  Taylor,  who  owned  four 
hundred  slaves.  It  predicted  in  June  that  Taylor  would 
be  elected  by  an  enormous  majority,  and  bitterly  taunted 
Polk  and  the  other  pro-slavery  Democrats  because  their 
Texan  policy  had  given  the  Whigs,  headed  by  the  hero 
of  Buena  Vista,  the  Presidency.  Its  attitude  was  hostile 
to  both  the  parties,  but  particularly  to  that  which  had 
betrayed  the  ideals  of  Jackson  and  Benton.  The  Barn- 
burners nominated  their  candidate  for  the  Presidency, 
Van  Buren,  at  an  enthusiastic  August  convention  on  the 
shores  of  Lake  Erie,  in  Buffalo.  The  leaders  were  Bry- 
ant, Chase,  Charles  Francis  Adams,  Joshua  R.  Giddings, 
Preston  King — an  intimate  friend  of  Bigelow's — and  Da- 
vid Dudley  Field.  All  these  men  knew  they  had  no 
chance  of  victory,  and  Bryant  frankly  said  as  much.  But 
the  trumpet-blast  of  the  convention,  "We  inscribe  on  our 
banner  Free  Soil,  Free  Speech,  Free  Labor,  and  Free 
Men,"  was  echoed  and  reechoed  by  the  Evening  Post  till 
the  day  of  election.  The  final  appeal,  on  the  day  that 
300,000  voters  cast  their  ballots  for  Van  Buren,  shows 
how  militant  its  position  was: 


244  THE  EVENING  POST 

Shall  the  great  republic  of  the  western  hemisphere,  the  greatest 
which  has  yet  blessed  the  anxious  hope  of  nations,  to  which  the 
ej^es  of  millions,  now  engaged  in  a  desperate  struggle  for  emanci- 
pation in  Europe,  turn  as  their  only  encouragement  and  solace, 
the  republic  which  was  founded  by  Washington  and  nourished 
into  vigor  by  Jei¥erson  and  Jackson — shall  this  republic  make  itself 
a  byword  and  a  reproach  wherever  its  name  is  heard?  Shall  the 
United  States  no  longer  be  known  as  the  home  of  the  free  and 
the  asylum  of  the  oppressed,  but  as  the  hope  of  the  slave  and  the 
oppressor  of  the  poor? 

All  good  men  have  an  interest  in  answering  these  questions. 
But  above  all  others,  the  laboring  man  has  a  deeper  interest.  The 
greatest  disgrace  inflicted  upon  labor  is  inflicted  by  the  institution 
of  slavery.  Those  who  support  it — we  mean  the  negro-owners, 
or  the  negro-drivers  of  the  South — openly  declare  that  he  who 
works  with  his  hands  is  on  the  level  with  the  slave.  They  can- 
not think  otherwise,  so  long  as  they  are  educated  under  the  influ- 
ence of  this  dreadful  injustice.  It  perverts  all  the  true  relations 
of  society,  and  corrupts  every  humane  and  generous  sentiment. 

Welles  published  in  the  Evening  Post  after  the  election 
an  unsigned  article  denouncing  the  tyranny  of  party 
allegiance,  but  Bryant's  journal  did  not  yet  forsake  De- 
mocracy. As  a  Democratic  organ  still  It  boasted  that  It 
published  the  party's  widest-circulated  weekly  paper.  As 
a  Democratic  organ  It  remarked  of  Polk,  when  he  went 
out  of  office  In  1849,  ^^at  "such  Presidents  as  he  are  only 
accidents,  and  two  such  accidents  are  not  at  all  likely  to  be 
visited  upon  a  single  miserable  generation" — an  assertion 
which  Pierce  and  Buchanan  soon  confuted.  Bennett's 
Herald,  with  Its  Instinct  for  the  winning  side,  having 
climbed  on  the  Taylor  bandwagon,  the  Evening  Post  was 
for  some  years  the  only  Democratic  newspaper  In  this 
great  Democratic  city. 

As  a  free-soil  Democratic  organ  It  opposed  the  Com- 
promise of  1850,  finding  a  peculiar  relish  In  attacking  any 
proposal  originated  by  Clay,  and  supported  by  the  equally 
distasteful  Whig  and  protectionist,  Webster.  Like  Chase 
and  Welles,  Bryant  and  BIgelow  saw  the  plain  objections 
to  any  compromise.  The  crisis  had  been  precipitated  by 
the  demand  for  the  admission  of  California,   and  the 


HEATED  POLITICS— 1 850-1 860  245 

question  was  whether  this  admission  should  be  purchased 
by  large  concessions  to  the  South,  or — as  the  Evening 
Post  maintained — demanded  as  a  right.  The  chief 
proposals  of  Clay  were  that  California  should  be  ad- 
mitted as  free  territory,  that  Territorial  Governments 
be  erected  In  the  rest  of  the  Mexican  cession  without  any 
restriction  upon  slavery,  that  the  slave  trade  be  pro- 
hibited In  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  that  a  new  and 
atrociously-framed  law  for  the  return  of  fugitive  slaves 
be  enacted. 

Clay's  action  was  courageous.  Bryant  wrote  that  he 
could  not  refuse  admiration  for  his  boldness  In  grappling 
thus  frankly  with  a  subject  so  full  of  difficulties,  and  that 
his  statesmanlike  directness  contrasted  refreshingly  with 
the  timidity  of  the  Administration.  But  he  called  the 
Compromise  a  blanket  poultice,  to  heal  Rve  wounds  at 
once,  when  the  common  sense  method  was  to  dress  each 
sore  separately;  and  he  opposed  any  effort  to  coax  the 
free  States  Into  abandonment  of  a  single  principle.  Be- 
sides Bryant's  and  BIgelow's  editorials,  the  Evening  Post 
published  a  5,000  word  argument  by  William  Jay,  son  of 
John  Jay,  and  called  upon  Its  readers  to  sign  petitions. 
It  specifically  objected  to  the  provision  that  Utah  and 
New  Mexico  should  be  organized  without  any  restriction 
against  slavery,  for  this  meant  an  abandonment  of  the 
Wilmot  Proviso,  which  It  had  always  supported.  Some 
Northern  advocates  of  the  Compromise  argued  that  the 
region  was  not  adapted  to  plantations  and  that  slavery 
would  not  be  transferred  thither  anyway;  but  this  view 
the  Post  derided,  quoting  Southern  members  of  Congress 
to  the  contrary.  It  was  equally  opposed  to  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Act.  When  Calhoun  argued  that  the  South  was 
being  "suffocated,"  it  showed  that  the  occupied  land  in 
the  slave  States  was  about  280  million  acres,  and  the  un- 
occupied land  about  395  million,  while  the  whole  area 
of  the  free  States  was  only  about  291  million  acres. 

Webster's  Seventh  of  March  speech  in  behalf  of  the 
Compromise  aroused  savage  Indignation  among  his  Bos- 
ton admirers,  but  It  did  not  surprise  the  Evening  Post. 


246  THE  EVENING  POST 

The  Washington  correspondent  wrote  of  the  stir  of  satis- 
faction among  the  listening  Southern  Senators,  of  the 
gleam  of  exultation  that  played  over  the  quizzical  visage 
of  Foote  of  Virginia.  But  Bryant  had  expected  Web- 
ster's volte-face: 

It  was  as  natural  to  suppose  that  he  would  do  this,  as  that  he 
would  abandon,  in  the  manner  he  has  done,  the  doctrines  of  free 
trade,  once  maintained  by  him  in  their  fullest  extent,  and,  taking 
the  money  of  the  Eastern  mill-owners,  enrol  himself  as  the  cham- 
pion of  protection  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Webster  stands  before  the  public  as  a  man  who  has  deserted 
the  cause  which  he  lately  defended,  deserted  it  under  circum- 
stances which  force  upon  him  the  imputation  of  a  sordid  motive, 
deserted  it  when  his  apostasy  was  desired  by  the  Administration, 
and  immediately  after  an  office  had  been  conferred  upon  his  son, 
to  say  nothing  of  what  has  been  done  by  the  Administration  for 
his  other  relatives.  It  is  but  little  more  than  two  years  since  he 
declared  himself  the  firmest  of  friends  to  the  Wilmot  Proviso, 
professing  himself  its  original  and  invariable  champion,  and  claim- 
ing its  principles  as  Whig  doctrine. 

Such  aspersions  upon  Webster's  motives  were  as  unfair 
as  Whittier's  bitter  lament  and  denunciation  in  the  poem 
*'Ichabod,"  but  the  same  righteous  anger  dictated  both. 
As  a  hoax,  the  Evening  Post  published  in  its  issue  of  May 
21  glaring  headlines,  proclaiming:  "GREAT  MEET- 
ING IN  BOSTON  I !— Tremendous  Excitement— DAN- 
IEL WEBSTER— Out  in  Favor  of— Applying  the  Pro- 
viso to  All  the  Territories  I ! — No  Compromise  in  Mas- 
sachusetts! 1 1"  The  news  story  below  was  an  account 
from  Niles^s  Register  of  Dec.  ii,  1819,  when  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise  was  pending,  of  Webster's  speech  at 
an  anti-slavery  meeting  in  Boston,  in  which  he  asserted 
that  it  was  the  constitutional  duty  of  Congress  to  prohibit 
slavery  in  all  territory  not  included  in  the  thirteen  original 
States.  It  strikingly  exhibited  the  orator's  inconsistency. 
The  pro-slavery  Commercial  was  angry,  declaring  that 
many  New  Yorkers  had  not  noted  the  date  18 19  and  had 
been  deceived.  Clay's  measures,  following  the  death  of 
President  Taylor,  were  passed  by  Congress,  but  to  the 


HEATED  POLITICS— 1 850-1 860  247 

end  the  Evening  Post  protested  that  no  permanent  com- 
promise was  possible.  The  issue  was  whether  a  slave- 
holding  minority  should  have  a  share  of  the  new  terri- 
tories equal  to  that  of  the  anti-slavery  majority.  The 
answer  was  yes  or  no,  for  there  could  be  no  middle 
ground.  ''If  an  association  is  composed  of  twenty  mem- 
bers and  five  insist  upon  having  an  equal  voice  in  its  af- 
fairs with  the  other  fifteen,  what  compromise  can  there 
be?    You  must  either  grant  what  they  ask  or  deny  it." 

It  was  not  until  the  ambitious  Douglas,  in  1854,  intro- 
duced the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  and  Pierce  brought  his 
Administration  behind  the  measure,  that  the  Evening 
Post  found  it  impossible  to  continue  its  connection  with 
the  Democratic  Party.  The  horror  with  which  Bryant 
and  Bigelow  looked  upon  this  enactment  Is  easily  under- 
stood. They  had  expected  the  great  valley  of  the  Platte 
as  a  matter  of  course  to  be  settled  as  free  soil,  since  it 
lay  north  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line,  36'  30".  It 
had  been  taken  for  granted,  when  proposals  had  been 
made  to  erect  territories  there,  that  slavery  had  once 
for  all  been  excluded.  But  now  Douglas,  maintaining 
that  the  people  in  such  regions  should  exercise  their  own 
choice  for  or  against  slavery,  proposed  to  nullify  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  and  to  create  two  territories,  in 
which  there  should  be  no  restrictions  as  to  slavery,  and 
in  which  the  people  should  be  perfectly  free  to  regulate 
their  "domestic  institutions"  as  they  saw  fit.  It  was  a 
body-blow  to  the  North. 

Franklin  Pierce,  a  handsome,  dashing  young  man  of 
whose  views  no  one  knew  very  much,  had  been  supported 
by  the  Evening  Post  in  1852,  against  Winfield  Scott. 
James  Ford  Rhodes  remarks  that  *'The  argument  of  the 
Post,  that  the  Democratic  candidate  and  platform  were 
really  more  favorable  to  liberty  than  the  Whig,  was 
somewhat  strained;  the  editor  failed  to  look  the  situation 
squarely  in  the  face."  He  was,  however,  acting  in  per- 
fect harmony  with  the  prominent  New  York  Democrats 
who  had,  four  years  previously,  bolted  the  regular  nom- 
ination.   Van  Buren  and  his  son,  Preston  King,  Benton, 


248  THE  EVENING  POST 

Cambreleng,  and  most  of  the  paper's  other  free-soil 
friends  were  willing  to  take  a  chance  upon  Pierce.  But 
he  had  not  been  in  office  four  months  before  the  Evening 
Post  suspected  his  pro-slavery  tendencies,  and  began  to 
eye  him  with  disfavor  and  alarm.  Its  utterances  moved 
the  Washington  Union  on  July  5,  1853,  ^"^  the  Rich- 
mond Enquirer  nine  days  later,  to  read  it  out  of  the 
Democratic  party.  "The  Evening  Post  and  the  Buffalo 
Republic  belong  to  that  class  of  hangers-on  to  the  Demo- 
cratic party  who  sail  under  Democratic  colors,  but  who 
are  in  reality  the  worst  enemies  of  the  party.  They  are 
abolitionists  in  fact,"  said  the  first-named  sheet.  The 
Enquirer  wanted  such  newspapers  to  begone.  "It  is  time 
that  they  should  be  spurned  with  indignation  and  scorn 
as  the  instruments  and  echoes  of  the  worst  factions  of  the 
day."  Now,  in  February,  1854,  when  Pierce  made  it 
clear  that  he  was  supporting  Douglas's  plan  for  repu- 
diating the  Missouri  Compromise,  the  Evening  Post 
turned  short  and  became  the  enemy  of  Democracy.  An 
occasional  Washington  correspondent  wrote  with  scorn 
of  the  renegade  son  of  New  Hampshire: 

It  was  reception  day.  We  walked  in  unheralded,  and  soon 
found  ourselves  in  the  reception  room,  where  Mr.  Pierce  was 
talking  with  a  bevy  of  ladies.  Immediately  on  seeing  us  he  ap- 
proached, received  us  very  politely,  and  introduced  us  to  Mrs. 
Pierce.  The  President  impressed  me  better  than  I  had  expected, 
and  better  than  most  of  his  pictures.  He  had  whitened  out  to  the 
true  complexion  of  a  parlor  knight — pale  and  soft  looking. 
Though  not  what  I  should  call  elegant,  his  manners  are  easy  and 
agreeable.  He  is  more  meek  in  appearance  than  he  is  usually 
represented,  as  might  be  expected  of  a  man  who  has  submitted 
to  be  drawn  into  the  position  of  tail  to  Senator  Douglas's  kite. 
.  .  .  The  President  evidently  feels  the  Presidency  thrilling  every 
nerve  and  coursing  every  vein.  He  is  so  delighted  with  it  that 
he  is  palpably  falling  into  the  delusion  of  supposing  himself  a 
possible  successor  to  himself !  Could  fond  self-conceit  go  further  ? 
Setting  aside  the  inherent  impossibility  of  the  thing,  on  account 
of  the  inevitable  discoveries  which  his  elevation  has  involved;  his 
mad  and  wicked  adhesion  to  the  Nebraska  perfidy  will  settle  his 
chances  (Feb.  13). 


HEATED  POLITICS— 1 850-1 860  249 

The  columns  of  the  paper  show  that  a  great  popular 
uprising  was  occurring  in  New  York.  It  had  recently 
contrasted  the  crowded,  applauding  houses,  witnessing 
''Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  at  the  Chatham  Street  Theater, 
with  the  mob  gathered  at  the  Chatham  Street  Chapel  in 
1834  to  attack  negroes  and  abolitionists.  In  January, 
1854,  a  great  mass-meeting  was  held  at  the  Tabernacle 
to  protest  against  the  Douglas  bill.  Bryant  pointed  out 
that  it  was  composed  of  merchants,  bankers,  and  profes- 
sional men  who  had  hitherto  stubbornly  opposed  the  abo- 
litionist movement  and  had  supported  the  Compromise 
of  1850.  He  noted  also  that  the  80,000  Germans  of  the 
city  were  unanimous,  like  most  other  immigrant  groups, 
for  keeping  the  West  open  to  free  labor.  The  Staats 
Zeitung  had  supported  Lewis  Cass  in  1848,  the  Com- 
promise in  1850,  and  Pierce  in  1852,  yet  now  it  was  de- 
cidedly against  the  Pierce  Administration,  as  were  the 
three  other  German  dailies. 

Early  on  a  March  morning  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill 
passed  the  Senate,  amid  the  boom  of  cannon  fired  by 
Southern  enthusiasts.  When  Chase  walked  down  the 
Capitol  steps  he  said  to  Sumner:  "They  celebrate  a  pres- 
ent victory,  but  the  echoes  they  awake  shall  never  rest 
until  slavery  itself  shall  die."  From  that  moment  the 
Evening  Post  treated  slavery  as  a  serpent  upon  which  the 
nation  must  set  its  heel,  and  Democracy  as  its  ally : 

The  President  has  taken  a  course  by  which  the  greater  part 
of  this  dishonor  is  concentrated  upon  the  Democratic  Party. 
Upon  him  and  his  Administration,  and  upon  all  the  northern 
friends  of  the  Nebraska  Bill  in  Congress,  and  upon  the  Democratic 
Party  who  gave  the  present  executive  his  power  of  mischief,  the 
people  will  visit  this  great  political  sin  of  the  day.  .  .  .  The  result 
is  inevitable;  Seward  is  in  the  ascendancy  in  this  State  and  the 
North  generally ;  the  Democratic  Party  has  lost  its  moral  strength 
in  the  free  States;  it  is  stripped  of  the  respect  of  the  people  by  the 
misconduct  of  those  who  claim  to  be  its  leaders,  and  whatever 
boast  we  may  make  of  our  excellent  maxims  of  legislation  and 
policy  in  regard  to  other  questions,  the  deed  of  yesterday  puts  us 
in  a  minority  for  years  to  come.  .  .  . 


250  THE  EVENING  POST 

The  admission  of  slavery  into  Nebraska  is  the  preparation  for 
yet  other  measures  having  in  view  the  aggrandizement  of  the  slave 
power — the  wresting  of  Cuba  from  Spain  to  make  several  addi- 
tional slave  States;  the  creation  of  yet  other  slave  States,  in  the 
territory  acquired  from  Mexico,  and  the  renewal  of  the  African 
slave  trade.  These  things  are  contemplated ;  the  Southern  journals 
already  speak  of  them  as  familiarly  and  flippantly  as  they  do  of 
an  ordinary  appropriation  bill,  and  who  shall  say  they  are  not 
already  at  our  door? 

The  bitterness  and  militancy  of  the  Evening  Post 
thenceforth  increased  day  by  day.  The  recapture  of  the 
slave  Burns  in  Boston  during  the  summer  of  1854,  the 
slave  whom  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson  tried  at  the 
head  of  a  mob  to  rescue,  and  who  was  marched  to  the 
wharf  by  platoons  of  soldiers  and  police  through  a  crowd 
of  fifty  thousand  hissing  people,  moved  the  Evening  Post 
to  call  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  "the  most  ruffianly  act  ever 
authorized  by  a  deliberative  assembly."  Month  after 
month  it  exhorted  the  North  to  send  emigrants  to  Kan- 
sas and  Nebraska  to  uphold  the  free-soil  cause.  It  in- 
vited Southerners  to  stay  at  their  own  watering-places  in 
summer.  It  taunted  the  South  with  its  lack  of  literature 
and  culture,  declaring  that  the  only  Southern  book  yet 
written  which  would  not  perish  was  Benton's  "Thirty 
Years'  View,"  a  free-soiler's  work.  In  the  State  election 
of  1855  it  supported  the  Repubhcan  ticket,  and  when 
"Prince"  John  Van  Buren  attacked  it  for  doing  so,  it 
assailed  him  in  turn  as  the  "degenerate  son"  of  a  great 
father.  As  1855  closed  with  fresh  news  every  day  of 
bloodshed  in  the  territories,  the  paper  cried  its  encourage- 
ment to  those  who  fought  for  free  soil : 

Every  liberal  sentiment — the  love  of  freedom,  the  hatred  of 
oppression,  the  detestation  of  fraud,  the  abhorrence  of  wrong 
cloaked  under  the  guise  of  law — every  feeling  of  the  human  heart 
which  does  not  counsel  cowardly  submission  and  the  purchase  of 
present  safety  as  the  price  of  future  evils,  takes  part  with  the  resi- 
dents of  Kansas.  They  may  commit  imprudent  acts,  they  may 
be  rash  .  .  .  but  their  cause  is  a  great  and  righteous  cause,  and 
we  must  stand  by  it  to  the  last. 


HEATED  POLITICS— 1 850-1 860  251 

It  was  a  foregone  conclusion  at  the  beginning  of  1856 
that  the  Evening  Post  would  lend  energetic  assistance  to 
the  half-organized  Republican  party.  During  the  pre- 
vious summer  and  autumn  it  had  devoted  several  edito- 
rials to  the  disintegration  of  the  Whig  party  in  both  sec- 
tions, and  to  that  of  the  Democratic  party  at  the  North. 
The  time  had  come,  it  said,  when  the  old  party  names 
meant  nothing  upon  the  principal  issues,  and  it  welcomed 
the  formation  of  a  new  party  of  definite  tenets.  Bige- 
low,  more  impetuous  than  Bryant,  made  the  Evening  Post 
an  energetic  champion  of  Fremont  more  than  a  month 
before  the  Republicans  nominated  him  for  the  Presi- 
dency. Even  the  Tribune  was  held  back  until  later  by 
the  doubts  of  Greeley's  lieutenant.  Pike,  so  that  the  Post 
was  one  of  the  first  powerful  Northern  sheets  for  him. 

To  BIgelow  It  was  that  Nathaniel  P.  Banks,  just  elected 
Speaker  of  the  House  and  the  foremost  advocate  of 
Fremont,  addressed  himself  when  he  came  to  New  York 
city  in  February,  1856.  Banks  sensibly  held  that  some 
one  was  needed  to  typify  free-soil  principles,  and  that  the 
people  would  never  join  a  party  en  masse  until  a  man 
stood  at  the  head  of  It;  while  he  believed  that  Fremont 
was  the  ideal  chieftain.  It  happened  that  Fremont  was 
then  at  the  Metropolitan  Hotel,  on  the  site  of  Niblo's 
Garden,  and  Banks  took  BIgelow  to  call.  The  sub-editor 
was  favorably  impressed.  He  gathered  a  conference  of 
free-soil  leaders  at  his  home,  including  the  venerable 
Frank  P.  Blair,  well  remembered  as  a  member  of  Jack- 
son's kitchen  cabinet;  Samuel  J.  Tilden;  Edwin  P.  Mor- 
gan, later  Governor  and  Senator;  and  Edward  Miller. 
All  save  Tilden  favored  Fremont,  and  Blair,  at  Bigelow's 
instance,  undertook  to  obtain  Senator  Benton's  endorse- 
ment of  his  son-in-law.  As  early  as  April  10,  1856,  the 
Evening  Post's  editorials  showed  a  marked  leaning 
toward  him,  and  on  May  18  (he  was  nominated  on 
June  19)  It  began  publishing  his  biography. 

Throughout  that  campaign  the  Evening  Post,  the  Trib- 
une, Times,  Courier,  and  the  German  press  of  the  city 
battled  against   the   "Buchaneers,"   represented  by   the 


252  THE  EVENING  POST 

Journal  of  Commerce,  Commercial,  Express,  and  Daily 
News.  Bigelow  offered  two  prizes  of  $ioo  each  for  the 
best  campaign  songs  in  English  and  German,  and  the  Post 
made  special  low  subscription  rates.  When  Fremont  was 
defeated  that  fall,  it  consoled  itself  not  only  by  the  start- 
ling strength  the  Republicans  displayed,  polling  1,341,- 
264  votes,  against  1,838,169  for  Buchanan,  but  by  the 
stinging  defeat  which  Pierce,  Cass,  and  Douglas,  so  sub- 
servient to  the  South,  saw  their  friends  suffer  in  New 
Hampshire,  Michigan,  and  Illinois.    Bryant  exulted: 

We  have  at  least  laid  the  basis  of  a  formidable  and  well-organ- 
ized party,  in  opposition  to  the  spread  of  slavery — that  scheme 
which  is  the  scandal  of  the  country  and  the  age.  In  those  States 
of  the  Union  which  have  now  given  such  large  majorities  for  Fre- 
mont, public  opinion,  which  till  lately  has  been  shuffling  and  un- 
decided in  regard  to  the  slavery  question,  is  now  clear,  fixed,  and 
resolute.  If  we  look  back  to  1848,  when  we  conducted  a  Presi- 
dential election  on  this  very  ground  of  opposition  to  the  spread 
of  slavery,  we  shall  see  that  we  have  made  immense  strides 
towards  the  ascendancy  which,  if  there  be  any  grounds  to  hope 
for  the  perpetuity  of  free  institutions,  is  yet  to  be  ours.  We  were 
then  comparatively  weak,  we  are  now  strong;  we  then  counted 
our  thousands,  we  now  count  our  millions;  we  could  then  point 
to  our  respectable  minorities  in  a  few  States,  we  now  point  to 
State  after  State.  .  .  .  The  cause  is  not  going  back — it  is  going 
rapidly  forward;  the  free-soil  party  of  1848  is  the  nucleus  of  the 
Republican  party  of  1856;  but  with  what  accessions  of  numbers, 
of  moral  power,  of  influence,  not  merely  in  public  assemblies,  but 
at  the  domestic  fireside! 

The  Evening  Post  was  now  as  firmly  a  "black  Repub- 
lican" organ  as  the  Tribune,  and  far  more  radical  in  tone 
than  Henry  J.  Raymond's  Times.  When  in  May,  1856, 
Brooks  of  South  Carolina  beat  Sumner  into  Insensibility 
at  his  desk  in  the  Senate  Chamber,  it  saw  in  the  episode 
no  mere  flash  of  Southern  hotheadedness,  but  evidence 
of  a  deep  and  consistent  menace.  It  was  a  "base  assault," 
a  bit  of  "cowardly  brutality."  "Are  we,  too,  slaves — 
slaves  for  life,  a  target  for  their  brutal  blows,  when  we 


HEATED  POLITICS— 1 850-1 860  253 

do  not  comport  ourselves  to  please  them?"     But  Bryant 
looked  below  the  symptom  to  its  cause : 

Violence  reigns  in  the  streets  of  Washington  .  .  .  violence  has 
now  found  its  way  into  the  Senate  chamber.  Violence  lies  in  wait 
on  all  the  navigable  rivers  and  all  the  railways  of  Missouri,  to 
obstruct  those  who  pass  from  the  free  States  into  Kansas.  Vio- 
lence overhangs  the  frontiers  of  that  territory  like  a  storm-cloud 
charged  with  hail  and  lightning.  Violence  has  carried  election 
after  election  in  that  territory.  ...  In  short,  violence  is  the 
order  of  the  day;  the  North  is  to  be  pushed  to  the  wall  by  it, 
and  this  plot  will  succeed  if  the  people  of  the  free  States  are  as 
apathetic  as  the  slaveholders  are  insolent. 

Already  the  Evening  Post  had  fitful  glimpses  of  the 
furnace  into  which  this  violence  was  leading.  Under  the 
heading,  "A  Short  Method  with  DIsunionlsts,"  Bryant 
( Sept.  26,  1855)  had  said  that  secession  must  be  throttled 
as  Jackson  throttled  It  in  South  Carolina.  The  news- 
paper already  regarded  slavery  as  an  evil  to  be  stamped 
out  altogether,  though  It  did  not  quite  say  so.  Gov. 
Wise  of  Virginia  deplored  the  failure  to  open  up  Cali- 
fornia as  a  slave  market.  Bryant  explained  this  by  point- 
ing out  that  the  natural  increase  of  Virginia's  black  popu- 
lation exceeded  23,000  souls  a  year,  which  at  $1,000  each 
came  to  more  than  $23,000,000.  The  annual  production 
of  wheat  in  Virginia  had  by  the  last  census  been  worth 
only  $11,000,000.  Since  the  extension  of  the  slave  mar- 
ket to  Texas  had  doubled  the  price  of  negroes,  It  was  no 
wonder  that  Virginia  wished  It  pushed  to  the  Pacific. 
"Such  a  state  of  things  may  be  very  proper  If  the  duty 
and  destiny  of  this  great  country  are  to  breed  slaves  and 
hunt  runaway  human  cattle.  But  how  Incompatible  with 
a  genuine  Christian  civilization !  How  it  moves  the  pride 
and  curls  the  lip  of  European  despotism !  How  it  strikes 
down  the  power  and  crushes  the  hopes  of  the  struggling 
friends  of  freedom  all  over  the  world!" 

The  excitement  produced  by  the  Dred  Scott  decision  in 
March,  1857,  is  evinced  by  the  fact  that  upon  eight  suc- 
cessive days  the  Evening  Post  devoted  a  leading  or  an 


254  THE  EVENING  POST 

important  editorial  to  Chief  Justice  Taney's  opinion.  It 
was  not  unexpected :  the  paper  had  uttered  angry  words 
In  1855  over  a  decision  by  a  lower  court  foreshadowing 
It.  But,  opening  all  Territories  North  and  South  to 
slavery,  it  seemed  Intolerable.  Bryant,  on  the  point  of 
sailing  for  Europe,  took  the  view  that  in  fact  it  was  so 
intolerable  the  American  people  would  never  accept  its 
practical  implications.  He  believed  the  opinion  of  the 
court  so  superficial  and  shallow  that  It  would  be  respected 
nowhere,  and  compared  Chief  Justice  Taney's  legal 
knowledge  disparagingly  with  that  shown  by  a  colored 
keeper  of  an  oyster  cellar  In  Baltimore  who  had  corrected 
some  of  his  historical  misinformation.  Northerners  re- 
garded the  situation  with  the  greater  alarm  because 
Buchanan's  Administration,  just  entering  office,  was  en- 
tirely committed  to  the  slavery  party,  the  President  ac- 
cepting Southern  Cabinet  members  like  Howell  Cobb  of 
Georgia  and  Jacob  Thompson  of  Mississippi  as  his  chief 
advisers.  Bryant  hinted  his  suspicion  of  a  treasonable 
conspiracy  between  Chief  Justice  Taney  and  these  South- 
ern leaders.  A  new  eloquence  was  animating  the  words 
in  which  he  wrote  of  slavery; 

Hereafter,  if  this  decision  shall  stand  for  law,  slavery,  instead 
of  being  what  the  people  of  the  slave  States  have  hitherto  called 
it,  their  peculiar  institution,  is  a  Federal  institution,  the  com- 
mon patrimony  and  shame  of  all  the  States,  those  which  flaunt 
the  title  of  free,  as  well  as  those  which  accept  the  stigma  of  being 
the  Land  of  Bondage ;  hereafter,  wherever  our  jurisdiction  extends, 
it  carries  with  it  the  chain  and  the  scourge — wherever  our  flag 
floats,  it  is  the  flag  of  slavery.  If  so,  that  flag  should  have  the 
light  of  the  stars  and  the  streaks  of  running  red  erased  from  it; 
it  should  be  dyed  black,  and  its  device  should  be  the  whip  and 
the  fetter. 

Are  we  to  accept,  without  question,  these  new  readings  of  the 
Constitution — to  sit  down  contentedly  under  this  disgrace — to 
admit  that  the  Constitution  was  never  before  rightly  understood, 
even  by  those  who  framed  it — to  consent  that  hereafter  it  shall 
be  the  slaveholders'  instead  of  the  freemen's  Constitution  ?  Never ! 
Never !  We  hold  that  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution,  so  far  as 
they  regard  slavery,  are  now  just  what  they  were  when  it  was 


HEATED  POLITICS— 1 850-1 860  2SS 

framed,  and  that  no  trick  of  interpretation  can  change  them.  The 
people  of  the  free  States  will  insist  on  the  old  impartial  construction 
of  the  Constitution,  adopted  in  calmer  times — the  construction 
given  it  by  Washington  and  his  contemporaries,  instead  of  that 
invented  by  modern  politicians  in  Congress  and  adopted  by  modern 
politicians  on  the  bench. 

But  In  the  territory  of  Kansas  the  decision  for  freedom 
was  already  being  made  by  force  of  arms.  Bryant  and 
BIgelow  had  never  ceased  urging  the  dispatch  of  North- 
ern settlers  and  breech-loading  rifles  to  the  Western 
plains.  The  poet  had  written  his  brother  (Feb.  15, 
1856)  that  the  city  was  alive  with  the  excitement  of  the 
Kansas  news,  and  subscribing  liberally  to  the  Emigrants' 
Aid  Society.  "The  companies  of  emigrants  will  be  sent 
forward  as  soon  as  the  rivers  and  lakes  are  opened — In 
March,  If  possible — and  by  the  first  of  May  there  will 
be  several  thousand  more  free-state  settlers  In  Kansas 
than  there  now  are.  Of  course  they  will  go  well  armed.'* 
After  election  day  that  fall  he  had  proposed  that  the 
Republican  campaign  organization  be  kept  functioning 
to  speed  the  flow  of  settlers.  The  Tribune  was  simul- 
taneously declaring  that  "The  duty  of  the  people  of  the 
free  States  Is  to  send  more  true  men,  more  Sharpens  rifles, 
and  more  howitzers  to  Kansas."  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
attending  a  meeting  at  which  a  deacon  asked  arms  for 
seventy-nine  men,  declared  that  a  Sharpe's  rifle  was  a 
greater  moral  agency  than  the  Bible,  and  that  Plymouth 
Church  would  furnish  half  the  guns  required;  whence 
the  familiar  nickname,  "Beecher's  Bibles."  Even  Henry 
J.  Raymond  and  the  Times,  In  spite  of  their  policy  of  not 
hurting  Southern  sensibilities,  saw  that  the  Issue  on  the 
Platte  must  be  fought  out. 

A  letter  from  Osawatomie,  Kansas,  gave  a  vivid  pic- 
ture In  the  Evening  Post  of  July  14,  1856,  of  the  perils 
of  the  free-soil  settlement  there,  and  asked  for  funds  suf- 
ficient to  keep  thirty  or  forty  horsemen  In  the  field,  well 
mounted  and  armed  with  breechloading  rifles,  Colt's  re- 
volvers, and  sabers.  Other  pleas  were  backed  by  ed- 
itorials.    A  month  after  the  Dred  Scott  decision  a  cor- 


256  THE  EVENING  POST 

respondent  writing  from  Leavenworth  told  how  the 
North  had  rallied  to  meet  the  crisis.  "Emigration  to 
Kansas  and  Nebraska  has  now  set  in  with  wonderful 
vigor,  and  such  force  as  none  have  anticipated.  Every 
train  from  Boston  and  New  York  to  St.  Louis  is  crowded 
to  excess.  More  boats  are  running  on  the  Missouri 
River  than  ever  before,  yet  all  are  crowded.  Ihave  been 
nearly  a  week  on  the  river  and  have  slept  on  the  cabin 
floor  every  night,  with  some  hundred  of  other  bed-  or 
rather  floor-fellows,  being  unable  to  get  a  stateroom.  It 
is  estimated  that  7,000  Kansas  emigrants  have  landed  at 
Kansas  City  since  the  opening  of  navigation,  and  thou- 
sands more  have  gone  on  to  Wyandotte,  Quindaro,  Leav- 
enworth, etc.  .  .  .  And  still  they  come.  A  single  party 
of  a  thousand  persons  was  expected  in  St.  Louis  last 
Tuesday."  The  later  correspondence  had  an  equally 
confident  note,  which  was  justified  when  in  October  the 
free-soilers  swept  the  Territorial  election. 

When  the  pro-slavery  legislators  that  autumn,  faced 
with  the  loss  of  their  control,  hastily  drew  up  the  Le- 
compton  Constitution,  providing  for  the  establishment 
and  perpetuation  of  slavery,  the  Evening  Post  attacked 
them  angrily.  Its  fear  was  that  the  Buchanan  Adminis- 
tration would  induce  Congress,  which  was  Democratic  in 
both  branches,  to  admit  Kansas  under  this  illegal  instru- 
ment. Thayer,  its  Washington  correspondent,  wrote  that 
the  Administration  leaders  were  employing  bribery  to 
that  end.  The  protests  of  the  Evening  Post  day  in  and 
day  out  contributed  to  the  overwhelming  Northern  senti- 
.ment  which  made  this  fraud  impossible. 

While  the  Herald,  Journal  of  Commerce,  and  Express 
were  filled  with  horror  by  John  Brown's  raid  at  Harper's 
Ferry  in  the  closing  days  of  1859,  the  Evening  Post 
pointed  to  it  as  a  just  retribution  upon  the  South  for  its 
own  crimes.  Douglas  believed  and  said  that  the  raid 
was  the  natural  result  of  the  teachings  of  the  Republican 
party;  Bryant  believed  it  the  natural  result  of  that  South- 
ern violence  which  he  had  excoriated  after  Brooks's  as- 
sault upon  Sumner.     His  editorials  almost  recall  John 


HEATED  POLITICS— 1 850-1 860         ^^57 

Brown's  own  favorite  text:  "Without  the  shedding  of       \ 
blood,  there  is  no  remission  of  sins."     Of  course,  he  con- 
demned the  lawlessness  of  the  act,  but  he  did  not  believe 
Brown  solely  responsible : 

Passion  does  not  reason;  but  if  Brown  reasoned  and  desired       , 
to  give  a  public  motive  to  his  personal  rancors,  he  probably  said 
to  himself  that  "the  slave  drivers  had  tried  to  put  down  freedom 
in  Kansas  by  force  of  arms,  and  he  would  try  to  put  down  slavery       ! 
by  the  same  means."     Thus  the  bloody  instructions  which  they       I 
taught  return  to  plague  the  inventors.     They  gave,  for  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  the  United  States,  an  example  of  the  resort        ^ 
to  arms  to  carry  out  political  schemes,  and,  dreadful  as  the  retalia- 
tion is  which  Brown  has  initiated,  must  take  their  share  of  the 
responsibility.     They  must  remember  that  they  accustomed  men, 
in  their  Kansas  forays,  to  the  idea  of  using  arms  against  their 
political  opponents,  that  by  their  crimes  and  outrages  they  drove 
hundreds   to   madness,   and   that   the    feelings   of   bitterness   and 
revenge  thus  generated  have  since  rankled  in  the  heart.     Brown 
has  made  himself  an  organ  of  these  in  a  fearfully  significant  way. 

The  evident  terror  many  Southerners  had  of  a  slave 
insurrection  filled  Bryant  with  scorn.  Buchanan  wished 
to  acquire  Cuban  and  northern  Mexico,  and  Southern 
newspapers  wished  Africa  opened  and  new  millions  of 
blacks  poured  in;  slavery  was  a  blessed  institution,  and 
we  could  not  have  too  much  of  itl  "But  while  they 
speak  the  tocsin  sounds,  the  blacks  are  in  arms,  their 
houses  are  in  flames,  their  wives  and  children  driven  into 
exile  or  killed,  and  a  furious  servile  war  stretches  its 
horrors  over  years.  That  is  the  blessed  institution  you 
ask  us  to  foster,  and  spread,  and  worship,  and  for  the 
sake  of  which  you  even  spout  your  impotent  threats 
against  the  grand  edifice  of  the  Union!"  Pending  the 
trial  there  was  much  interest  in  Brown's  carpet-bag.  The 
Evening  Post  said  that  its  incendiary  contents  were  prob- 
ably Washington's  will,  emancipating  his  slaves;  his  let- 
ter of  1786  to  Lafayette  expressing  hope  that  slavery 
would  be  abolished;  Jefferson's  Notes  on  Virginia,  de- 
ploring slavery;  his  project  of  1785  for  emancipating  the 
slaves;  and  similar  documents  by  Patrick  Henry,  John 


258  THE  EVENING  POST 

Randolph,  and  Monroe.  Bryant's  utterance  when  John 
Brown  was  hanged  recalls  that  of  our  other  great  men 
of  letters.  Emerson  spoke  of  Brown  as  "that  new  saint 
awaiting  his  martyrdom";  Thoreau  called  him  "an  angel 
of  light";  Longfellow  jotted  in  his  diary,  "The  date  of 
a  new  revolution,  quite  as  much  needed  as  the  old  one." 
Bryant  wrote ; 

.  .  .  History,  forgetting  the  errors  of  his  judgment  in  the  con- 
templation of  his  unfaltering  courage,  of  his  dignified  and  manly 
deportment  in  the  face  of  death,  and  of  the  nobleness  of  his  aims, 
will  record  his  name  among  those  of  its  martyrs  and  heroes. 

Meanwhile,  a  new  figure  had  arisen  in  the  West.  Like 
most  other  New  York  journals  the  Evening  Post  had 
Instantly  perceived  the  significance  of  the  Lincoln- 
Douglas  debates  of  1858.  When  they  began  it  remarked 
that  Illinois  was  the  theater  of  the  most  momentous  con- 
test, whether  one  considered  the  eminence  of  the  con- 
testants or  the  consequences  which  might  result  from  it, 
that  had  occurred  in  any  State  canvass  since  Silas 
Wright's  defeat  for  Governor  in  1846.  When  they 
closed  it  remarked  (Oct.  18)  :  "No  man  of  this  genera- 
tion has  grown  more  rapidly  before  the  country  than 
Mr.  Lincoln  in  this  canvass." 

At  first  the  paper's  reports  of  the  Lincoln-Douglas 
addresses  were  taken  from  the  Chicago  press,  but  it  soon 
had  its  own  correspondent,  Chester  P.  Dewey,  following 
the  debaters.  This  writer  knew  Lincoln's  capacity. 
"Poor,  unfriended,  uneducated,  a  day  laborer,  he  has  dis- 
tanced all  these  disadvantages,  and  in  the  profession  of 
the  law  has  risen  steadily  to  a  competence,  and  to  the 
position  of  an  intelligent,  shrewd,  and  well-balanced 
man,"  ran  his  characterization.  "Familiarly  known  as 
'Long  Abe,'  he  is  a  popular  speaker,  and  a  cautious, 
thoughtful  politician,  capable  of  taking  a  high  position  as 
a  statesman  and  legislator."  He  described  the  enthusi- 
asm with  which  Lincoln's  supporters  at  Ottawa  carried 
him  from  the  grounds  on  their  shoulders.  He  related 
how  at  Jonesboro,  in  the  southern  extremity  of  the  State, 


HEATED  POLITICS— 1 850-1 860  259 

where  the  crowd  was  overwhelmingly  Democratic,  Doug- 
las came  to  the  grounds  escorted  by  a  band  and  a  cheer- 
ing crowd,  amid  the  discharges  of  a  brass  cannon,  while 
Lincoln  arrived  with  only  a  few  friends ;  how  when  Lin- 
coln arose  "a  faint  cheer  was  elicited,  followed  by  de- 
risive laughter  from  the  Douglas  men" ;  but  how  he  quite 
won  his  audience. 

It  Is  Interesting  to  note  that  this  correspondent  grasped 
the  full  importance  of  the  Freeport  debate,  where  Lin- 
coln asked  Douglas  whether  the  people  of  a  territory 
could  themselves  exclude  slavery  from  it.  To  answer 
"no"  meant  that  Douglas  repudiated  his  doctrine  of 
squatter  sovereignty,  and  to  answer  "yes"  meant  that  he 
alienated  the  South.  On  Sept.  5  the  Evening  Post  had 
published  a  long  editorial  in  which  it  concluded  that 
Douglas  was  likely  to  be  the  Southern  candidate  in  i860. 
Just  two  days  later  its  correspondent  foretold  the  effect 
of  Douglas's  fatal  "yes"  at  Freeport: 

It  was  very  evident  that  Mr.  Douglas  was  cornered  by  the 
questions  put  to  him  by  Mr.  Lincoln.  He  claimed  to  be  the  up- 
holder of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and  also  of  popular  sovereignty. 
He  was  asked  to  reconcile  the  two.  .  .  . 

When  the  Freeport  speech  of  Mr.  Douglas  shall  go  forth  to 
all  the  land,  and  be  read  by  the  men  of  Georgia  and  South  Caro- 
lina, their  eyes  will  doubtless  open.  Can  they  .  .  .  abet  a  man 
who  avows  these  revolutionary  sentiments  and  endorses  the  right 
to  self-government  of  the  people  of  a  territory?  .  .  .  How  would 
he  appear  uttering  this  treason  of  popular  sovereignty  at  a  South 
Carolina  barbecue? 

Lincoln  had  been  anxious  to  visit  New  York,  and  on 
Feb.  27,  i860,  through  the  invitation  of  the  Young  Men's 
Central  Republican  Union,  he  made  his  great  speech  at 
Cooper  Institute.  Bryant  presided.  The  poet  had  met 
Lincoln  nearly  thirty  years  before,  when,  on  his  first  visit 
to  Illinois,  he  had  encountered  a  company  of  volunteers 
going  forward  to  the  Black  Hawk  War,  and  had  been  at- 
tracted by  the  racy,  original  conversation  of  the  uncouth 
young  captain ;  but  this  meeting  he  had  forgotten.    James 


26o  THE  EVENING  POST 

A.  Briggs,  who  made  all  the  business  arrangements  for 
Lincoln's  speech,  later  told  In  the  Evening  Post  (Aug. 
1 6,  1867)  some  Interesting  facts  concerning  the  occasion. 
It  was  Briggs  who  personally  asked  Bryant  to  preside. 
The  fame  of  the  Westerner  had,  although  the  jealous 
Times,  a  Seward  organ,  spoke  of  him  as  merely  ''a  law- 
yer who  had  some  local  reputation  In  Illinois,"  Impressed 
every  one.  In  Its  two  Issues  preceding  the  27th  the  Even- 
ing Post  published  prominent  announcements  of  Lincoln's 
arrival  and  of  the  meeting,  and  promised  "a  powerful 
assault  upon  the  policy  and  principles  of  the  pro-slavery 
party,  and  an  able  vindication  of  the  Republican  creed.** 
The  hall  was  well  filled.  According  to  Briggs,  the  tickets 
were  twenty-five  cents  each,  and  the  receipts,  in  spite  of 
many  free  admissions,  $367,  or  just  $17  In  excess  of  the 
expenses,  of  which  the  fee  to  Lincoln  represented  $200. 
As  the  Tribune  said,  since  the  days  of  Clay  and  Webster 
no  man  had  spoken  to  a  larger  body  of  the  city's  culture 
and  intellect. 

Bryant,  in  his  brief  introductory  speech,  said  that  it 
was  a  grateful  office  to  present  such  an  eminent  Western 
citizen;  that  "these  children  of  the  West  form  a  living 
bulwark  against  the  advance  of  slavery,  and  from  them 
is  recruited  the  vanguard  of  the  mighty  armies  of  liberty" 
(loud  applause)  ;  and  that  he  had  only  to  pronounce  the 
name  of  the  great  champion  of  Republicanism  in  Illinois, 
who  would  have  won  the  victory  two  years  before  but  for 
an  unjust  apportionment  law,  to  secure  the  profoundest 
attention.  The  Evening  Post  reported  that  at  the  end 
of  Lincoln's  speech  the  audience  arose  almost  to  a  man, 
and  expressed  its  approbation  by  the  most  enthusiastic 
applause,  the  waving  of  handkerchiefs  and  hats,  and  re- 
peated cheers.  It  reproduced  the  address  In  full,  saying 
editorially  that  when  It  had  such  a  speech  It  was  tempted 
to  wish  its  columns  indefinitely  elastic,  emphasizing  Lin- 
coln's principal  points,  and  praising  highly  the  logic  of  the 
argument.  Its  mastery  of  clear  and  impressive  statement, 
and  the  originality  of  the  closing  passages.  Briggs  tells  us 
that  Lincoln  read  this  eulogistic  editorial: 


HEATED  POLITICS— 1 850-1 860  261 

After  the  return  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  New  York  from  the  East, 
where  he  had  made  several  speeches,  he  said  to  me:  *'I  have  seen 
what  all  the  New  York  papers  said  about  that  thing  of  mine  in 
the  Cooper  Institute,  with  tjhe  exception  of  the  New  York  Evening 
Post,  and  I  would  like  to  know  what  Mr.  Bryant  thought  of  it" ; 
and  he  then  added:  "It  is  worth  a  visit  from  Springfield,  Illinois, 
to  New  York  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  such  a  man  as  William 
Cullen  Bryant."  At  Mr.  Lincoln's  request  I  sent  him  a  copy 
of  the  Evening  Post,  with  a  notice  of  his  lecture. 

Raymond  and  the  Times,  when  the  Republican  na- 
tional convention  met  in  Chicago  on  May  16,  i860,  were 
ardently  for  Seward — Indeed,  Thurlow  Weed  and  Ray- 
mond were  Seward's  chief  lieutenants  there.  Greeley, 
had  he  been  able  to  make  the  nomination  himself,  would 
have  chosen  Bates  of  Missouri  first,  and  anybody  to  beat 
Seward  second.  Bryant,  up  to  the  time  of  the  Cooper 
Union  speech,  had  supported  Chase  for  the  nomination, 
but  he  knew  that  his  chances  were  slight  and  he  now 
leaned  toward  Lincoln — for  he  also  was  anxious  to  see 
Seward  beaten.  The  Evening  Post's  dislike  of  Seward 
dated  from  1853,  when  it  had  declared  (Nov.  2)  that 
his  friends  in  the  Whig  Party  and  a  Democratic  faction 
had  formed  a  corrupt  combination  to  plunder  the  State 
treasury  through  contracts.  Its  bitterness  against  him 
had  steadily  Increased  during  the  years  of  his  close  asso- 
ciation with  the  political  boss,  Thurlow  Weed.  No  one  be- 
lieved that  Seward  was  dishonest,  but  thousands  thought 
that  Weed's  methods  were  detestable,  and  that  Seward's 
intimacy  with  men  who  schemed  for  public  grants  was 
altogether  too  close.  References  to  the  connection  be- 
tween "Seward's  chances"  and  "New  York  street  rail- 
roads" had  become  common  in  1859.  Bryant  wrote  his 
associate  Bigelow  on  Dec.  14  that,  much  as  Seward  had 
been  hurt  by  the  misconstruction  of  his  phrase  "the  irre- 
pressible conflict,"  he  had  been  damaged  more  in  New 
York  by  something  else.  "I  mean  the  project  of  Thur- 
low Weed  to  give  charters  for  a  set  of  city  railways,  for 
which  those  who  receive  them  are  to  furnish  a  fund  of 
from  four  to  six  hundred  thousand  dollars,  to  be  ex- 


262  THE  EVENING  POST 

pended  for  the  Republican  cause  in  the  next  Presidential 
election."    He  added  on  Feb.  20: 

Mr.  Seward  is  not  without  his  chance  of  a  nomination,  though 
some  of  your  friends  here  affirm  that  he  has  none.  He  is  him- 
self, I  hear,  very  confident  of  getting  it.  While  the  John  Brown 
excitement  continued,  his  prospects  improved,  for  he  was  the  best- 
abused  man  of  his  party — now  that  he  is  let  alone,  his  stock  de- 
clines again  and  people  talk  of  other  men.  For  my  part  I  do 
not  see  that  he  is  more  of  a  representative  man  than  a  score  of 
others  in  our  party.  The  great  difficulty  which  I  have  in  regard 
to  him  is  this,  that  by  the  election  of  a  Republican  President  the 
slavery  qiiestion  is  settled,  and  that  with  Seward  for  President, 
it  will  be  the  greatest  good  luck,  a  special  and  undeserved  favor 
of  Providence,  if  every  honest  Democrat  of  the  Republican  party 
be  not  driven  into  the  opposition  within  a  twelvemonths  after 
he  enters  the  White  House.  There  are  bitter  execrations  of  Weed 
and  his  friends  passing  from  mouth  to  mouth  among  the  old  radi- 
cal Democrats  of  the  Republican  party  here. 

Bigelow,  writing  home  from  London  (March  20), 
saw  in  Lincoln  the  only  hope  of  the  party.  He  had  no 
use  for  Seward;  he  had  even  less  for  Bates — "an  old 
Clay  Whig  from  Missouri  .  .  .  who  has  been  for  two 
years  or  more  the  candidate  of  Erastus  Brooks  and  Gov. 
Hunt,  who  is  not  only  not  a  Republican  but  who  is  put  for- 
ward liecause  he  is  not  a  Republican,  and  whom  the 
Tribune  recommends  because  he  can  get  some  votes  that 
a  straight-out  Republican  cannot  get."  Moreover,  Bige- 
low saw  "no  possibility  of  nominating  Fessenden,  or 
Chase,  or  Banks,  or  any  such  man";  and  he  knew  that 
unless  the  right  kind  of  Republican  was  elected  the  fight 
was  lost. 

Lincoln's  nomination  was  therefore  hailed  with  more 
real  gratification  by  the  Post  than  by  any  other  great  East- 
ern newspaper.  It  saw  in  him  one  who  would  call  forth 
the  enthusiasm  of  his  party,  and  the  attachment  of  inde- 
pendent voters.  The  popular  approval  had  already  been 
surprising  in  its  volume  and  gusto.  "The  Convention 
could  have  made  no  choice,  we  think,  which,  along  with 
so  many  demonstrations  of  ardent  approval,  would  have 


HEATED  POLITICS— 1 850.1 860  263 

been  met  with  so  few  expressions  of  dissent."  It  paused 
to  point  out  the  two  reasons  for  Seward's  defeat.  The 
first  was  the  convention's  opinion,  with  which  it  was  in- 
clined to  agree,  that  he  could  not  be  elected,  because  he 
could  not  have  carried  Pennsylvania,  Douglas  would  have 
beaten  him  in  Illinois,  and  he  was  weak  in  Ohio,  Indiana, 
and  Vermont;  the  second  lay  in  the  distrust  of  his  warm- 
est political  friends  excited  by  the  corruption  of  the  two 
last  New  York  legislatures.  At  this  time  there  was 
much  talk  about  ''representative  men,"  and  the  Post, 
after  naming  a  few,  remarked  that  Lincoln  surpassed 
them  all  as  a  personification  of  the  distinctive  genius  of 
our  country  and  its  Institutions.  "Whatever  is  peculiar 
in  the  history  and  development  of  America,  whatever  is 
foremost  in  its  civilization,  whatever  Is  good  in  its  social 
and  political  structure,  finds  its  best  expression  in  the 
career  of  such  men  as  Abraham  Lincoln." 

A  vignette  of  Lincoln  by  one  of  Bryant's  friends  then 
travehng  in  the  West,  George  Opdyke,  was  immediately 
printed  to  disprove  the  current  story  that  he  dwelt  in  "the 
lowest  hoosier  style" : 

I  found  Mr.  Lincoln  living  in  a  handsome,  but  not  pretentious, 
double  two-story  frame  house,  having  a  wide  hall  running 
through  the  center,  with  parlors  on  both  sides,  neatly  but  not 
ostentatiously  furnished.  It  was  just  such  a  dwelling  as  a  majority 
of  the  well-to-do  residents  of  these  fine  western  towns  occupy. 
Everything  about  it  had  a  look  of  comfort  and  independence.  The 
library  I  remarked  in  passing,  particularly,  and  I  was  pleased  to 
see  long  rows  of  books,  which  told  of  the  scholarly  tastes  and  cul- 
ture of  the  family. 

Lincoln  received  us  with  great,  and  to  me  surprising,  urbanity. 
I  had  seen  him  before  in  New  York,  and  brought  with  me  an  im- 
pression of  his  awkward  and  ungainly  manner;  but  in  his  own 
house,  where  he  doubtless  feels  himself  freer  than  in  the  strange 
New  York  circles,  Lincoln  had  thrown  this  off,  and  appeared  easy, 
if  not  graceful.  He  is,  as  you  know,  a  tall  lank  man,  with  a  long 
neck,  and  his  ordinary  movements  are  unusually  angular,  even 
out  west.  As  soon,  however,  as  he  gets  interested  in  conversa- 
tion, his  face  lights  up,  and  his  attitudes  and  gestures  assume  a 
certain  dignity  and  impressiveness.     His  conversation  is  fluent, 


264  THE  EVENING  POST 

agreeable,  and  polite.  You  see  at  once  from  it  that  he  is  a  man 
of  decided  and  original  character.  His  views  are  all  his  own ; 
such  as  he  has  worked  out  from  a  patient  and  varied  scrutiny  of 
life,  and  not  such  as  he  has  obtained  from  others.  Yet  he  cannot 
be  called  opinionated.  He  listens  to  others  like  one  eager  to 
learn.  And  his  replies  evince  at  the  same  time  both  modesty  and 
self-reliance.  I  should  say  that  sound  common  sense  was  the 
principal  quality  of  his  mind,  although  at  times  a  striking  phrase 
or  word  reveals  a  peculiar  vein  of  thought. 

At  first,  it  is  Interesting  to  note,  the  Evening  Post  was 
not  only  all  confidence  In  Lincoln's  election,  but  all  con- 
tempt for  the  Southern  threats  of  secession  If  he  won. 
Until  that  fall  It  held  to  a  short-sighted  view  that  the 
secession  talk  was  a  mere  repetition  of  the  old  Southern 
attempt,  made  so  often  since  nullification  days,  to  bully 
the  North  as  a  spoiled  child  bullies  Its  nurse.  This  con- 
fidence, which  the  Times  and  Tribune  fully  shared,  was 
not  assumed  for  campaign  reasons.  The  stock  market 
sustained  It,  and  Bryant  pointed  to  the  midsummer  ad- 
vance In  security  prices  as  showing  that  business  was  not 
alarmed.  A  correspondent  wrote  from  Newport  on  Aug. 
23  that  visitors  from  all  parts  of  the  South  were  there, 
but  no  fire-eating  disunlonlsts  among  them;  "they  deplore 
the  election  of  Lincoln,  while  they  regard  It  as  almost  a 
certainty,  but  scout  the  Idea  of  secession  or  rebellion  as  a 
necessary  consequence  of  It."  For  years  the  North  had 
listened  to  bullying,  blustering,  and  threats  from  the 
South,  and  It  had  grown  too  much  used  to  menaces. 

But  In  the  final  fortnight  of  the  campaign  the  news- 
paper began  to  perceive  that  there  was  a  sullen  reality 
behind  these  fulmlnatlons.  On  Oct.  20  we  find  the  first 
editorial  to  treat  secession  earnestly,  one  declaring  that 
no  government  could  parley  with  men  In  arms  against  Its 
authority,  and  that  like  Napoleon  dealing  with  the  Insur- 
rectlonarles  of  Paris,  the  United  States  "must  fire  cannon 
balls  and  not  blank  cartridges."  On  Oct.  29  it  charged 
the  existence  of  a  definite  secession  conspiracy.  Its  au- 
thors were  Howell  Cobb  and  other  ofl^icers  high  in  the 
Administration;  moreover,  it  declared,  "the  eggs  of  the 


John  Bigelow 
Associate  Editor  1849-1860. 


HEATED  POLITICS— 1850-1860  265 

conspiracy  now  hatching  were  laid  four  years  ago,  in  the 
Cincinnati  Convention."  Bigelow  at  that  time,  a  close 
observer  at  Cincinnati  of  the  scenes  amid  which  Buchanan 
was  nominated,  had  declared  (June  13,  1856)  that  the 
nomination  was  purchased  from  the  South  by  a  promise 
from  one  of  Buchanan's  lieutenants,  Col.  Samuel  Black, 
that  if  a  radical  Republican  should  be  elected  his  suc- 
cessor in  i860,  then  Buchanan  would  do  nothing  to  inter- 
fere with  the  secession  of  the  Southern  States. 

A  few  days  before  election,  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  who 
was  supporting  Douglas,  came  into  the  office  of  the 
Evening  Post  in  high  excitement.  In  Bigelow's  room 
were  seated  the  Collector  of  the  Port,  Hiram  Barney; 
the  president  of  the  Illinois  Central,  William  H.  Osborn, 
and  one  of  the  commissioners  of  Central  Park.  They 
were  all  confident  of  Lincoln's  election,  and  Tilden's 
excitement  rose  as  he  saw  them  rejoicing  in  the  certainty. 
With  a  repressed  anger  and  dignity  that  sobered  them, 
he  cut  short  their  chaffing  by  saying:  "I  would  not  have 
the  responsibility  of  William  Cullen  Bryant  and  John 
Bigelow  for  all  the  wealth  in  the  sub-treasury.  II  you 
have  your  way,  civil  war  will  divide  this  country,  and 
you  will  see  blood  running  like  water  in  the  streets  of 
this  city."  With  these  words,  he  left.  On  Oct.  30  the 
Evening  Post  devoted  more  than  six  columns  to  a  letter 
by  Tilden,  in  which  he  explained  why,  though  long  a  free- 
soiler,  he  had  not  supported  Lincoln.  He  declared  that 
the  Republican  Party  was  a  sectional  party,  that  if  it 
ruled  at  Washington  the  South  would  be  virtually 
under  foreign  domination,  and  that  the  Southerners 
would  never  yield  to  its  "impracticable  and  intolerable" 
policy.  The  Post  replied  to  but  one  of  his  arguments. 
The  Republican  Party,  it  said,  was  sectional  only  because 
it  had  never  been  given  a  fair  hearing  at  the  South.  But, 
it  added,  "We  do  not  propose  to  review  Mr.  Tilden's 
paper  at  length  to-day;  a  logical  and  conclusive  answer 
to  all  its  positions  is  in  the  course  of  preparation,  and 
will  appear  in  the  Evening  Post  just  one  week  from  to- 
morrow afternoon." 


ii66  THE  EVENING  POST 

On  the  day  announced,  the  day  after  election,  the 
Evening  Post  published  a  table  of  the  electoral  votes,  by 
which  it  appeared  that  Lincoln  had  a  certain  majority  of 
thirty-five  and  a  possible  majority  of  forty-two;  heading 
it,  "Reply  to  the  Letter  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  Continued 
and  Concluded."  But  Tilden's  prophecy  was  to  be 
realized  in  a  fashion  the  editors  little  expected. 


y 


CHAPTER  TWELVE 

THE  NEW  YORK  PRESS  AND  SOUTHERN   SECESSION 

No  Other  five  months  in  our  history  under  the  Con- 
stitution have  been  so  critical  as  the  five  between  the 
election  of  Lincoln  and  the  capture  of  Sumter.  The  anger 
of  the  South  at  the  Republican  triumph;  the  secession  of 
South  Carolina  before  Christmas,  followed  by  the  rest 
of  the  lower  South;  the  erection  of  a  Southern  Confed- 
eracy in  February,  with  the  choice  of  Davis  as  provisional 
President;  the  complete  paralysis  of  Buchanan's  govern- 
ment— all  this  made  the  months  anxious  and  uncertain 
beyond  any  others  in  the  century.  Until  New  Year's, 
many  people  in  the  North  believed  that  the  Southern 
threats  were  not  to  be  taken  seriously;  until  February, 
many  believed  that  the  outlook  for  a  peaceful  preserva- 
tion of  the  Union  was  bright.  Thereafter  a  large  part 
of  the  population  held  that,  in  Gen.  Winfield  Scott's 
phrase,  the  erring  sisters  should  be  let  depart  in  peace. 
In  this  anomalous  period  a  thousand  currents  of  opinion 
possessed  the  land,  and  no  one  could  predict  what  the 
next  day  would  bring  forth.  The  time  tried  the  judg- 
ment and  patriotism  of  the  nation's  newspapers  as  by  fire. 

The  New  York  press  had  at  this  time  asserted  a 
national  ascendancy  which  it  slowly  lost  after  the  war  as 
the  great  West  increased  in  population.  During  Decem- 
ber, i860,  the  Herald  averaged  a  week-day  circulation 
of  77,107,  and  a  Sunday  circulation  of  82,656,  which  it 
boasted  was  the  largest  in  the  world.  The  daily  circula- 
tion of  the  London  Times  was  25,000  less.  The  Tribune 
boasted  on  April  10,  1861,  that  while  its  daily  circula- 
tion was  55,000,  its  weekly  circulation  was  enormous, 
making  the  total  number  of  its  buyers  287,750.  Two- 
fifths  of  these  were  in  New  York,  but  it  had  26,091  sub- 
scribers in   Pennsylvania;   24,900   in  Ohio;    16,477   ^^ 


268  THE  EVENING  POST 

Illinois;  11,968  in  Iowa;  11,081  in  Indiana,  and  even  in 
California  5,535.  In  the  South,  on  the  other  hand,  there 
was  a  mere  handful  of  buyers — 21  in  Mississippi,  23 
in  South  Carolina,  35  in  Georgia,  and  10  in  Florida, 
against  10,589  in  Maine.  The  Sun  had  a  d^ily  circula- 
tion of  about  60,000,  and  the  Times  of  about  35,000. 
That  of  the  Evening  Post  was  approaching  20,000,  while 
its  weekly  and  semi-weekly  issues  were  widely  read  in  the 
West.  It  was  in  reference  to  the  influence  of  the  Tribune, 
Times,  and  Evening  Post  that  the  Herald  said,  ''With- 
out New  York  journalism  there  would  have  been  no  Re- 
publican party."  It  had  some  excuse  for  its  boast  regard- 
ing the  city's  journals  (Nov.  8)  : 

Several  of  them,  possessing  revenues  equal  in  amount  to  those 
of  some  of  the  sovereign  States,  are  unapproachable  by  influences 
except  those  of  a  national  policy,  and  they  constitute  a  congress 
of  intellect  in  permanent  session  assembled.  The  telegraph  and 
the  locomotive  carry  their  influences  to  the  remotest  corners  of 
the  land  in  a  constantly  increasing  ratio.  These,  then,  are  to  be 
the  leading  powers  which  are  to  range  parties,  and  conduct  the 
discussions  of  the  great  questions  of  the  generation  that  is  before 
us.  They,  and  they  only,  can  do  it  in  a  catholic  and  cosmopolitan 
spirit  .  .  .  These  affect  the  affairs  and  hopes  of  men  everywhere. 

Lincoln's  election  was  accepted  with  unmixed  pleasure 
by  the  Evening  Post  and  Tribune,  the  Times  and  the 
World,  which  saw  in  it  a  long-deferred  assurance  that  the 
popular  majority  in  favor  of  freedom  had  at  last  found 
a  dependable  leader.  It  was  accepted  with  resignation 
by  the  three  chief  opposition  newspapers.  Bennett's 
Herald,  with  a  snort  of  chagrin,  reminded  good  citizens 
that  they  should  "settle  down  to  their  occupations  and  to 
discharge  the  duty  which  they  owe  to  their  families." 
The  Journal  of  Commerce  remarked  that  "we  have  noth- 
ing to  do  but  submit,"  adding  that  the  conservative  ma- 
jority in  both  Houses  "will  check  any  wayward  fancies 
that  may  seize  the  executive,  under  the  influence  of  his 
abolition  advisers."  The  Express  deplored,  deeply  de- 
plored, the  re^ylt,  but  formally  acquiesced  in  it,  "as  under 


SOUTHERN  SECESSION  269 

the  forms  If  not  in  the  spirit  and  intent  of  the  Constitu- 
tion." But  as  the  news  of  the  secession  movement  In- 
creased, the  differences  of  opinion  grew  marked. 

Bryant  In  the  Evening  Post  was  anxious  that  Lincoln 
should  not  talk  of  concessions,  nor  seem  to  be  frightened 
by  the  Southern  bluster.  He  must  refuse  to  parley  with 
disunionists : 

If  there  are  any  States  disposed  to  question  the  supremacy  of 
the  Constitution,  or  to  assert  the  incompatibility  of  our  climatic 
influences  and  social  institutions  with  the  form  of  government 
under  which  we  have  been  hitherto  united,  now  is  the  time  to 
meet  the  question  and  settle  it.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Lincoln  cannot  say  one  word  or  take  one  step  toward  con- 
cession of  any  kind  without  in  so  far  striking  at  the  very  founda- 
tions upon  which  our  government  is  based,  violating  the  confidence 
of  his  supporters,  and  converting  our  victory  into  a  practical 
defeat. 

AVhen  the  idea  of  resisting  the  will  of  the  majority  is  abandoned 
in  responsible  quarters;  when  every  sovereign  State  shows  itself 
content  to  abide  the  issue  of  a  constitutional  election,  it  will  be 
time  enough  for  Mr.  Lincoln  to  enlighten  those  who  need  light 
as  to  what  he  will  do  and  what  he  will  not  do ;  and  we  greatly 
mistake  the  man  if  he  will  give  ear  to  any  proposition  designed  to 
convert  him  into  a  President  not  of  the  whole  Union,  nor  of  those 
who  voted  for  him,  but  of  those  who  did  not. 

The  Herald  was  equally  insistent  that  Lincoln  should 
promise  concessions;  "he  should  at  once  give  to  the  world 
the  programme  of  the  policy  he  will  pursue  as  President, 
and  that  policy  should  be  one  of  conciliation,"  It  said  on 
Nov.  9.  But  a  special  correspondent  of  the  Post,  inter- 
viewing Lincoln  in  Springfield  on  Nov.  14,  and  finding 
him  reading  the  history  of  the  nullification  movement,  ob- 
tained an  assurance  that  he  would  make  no  such  sign  of 
weakness.  "I  know,"  he  quoted  Lincoln  as  saying,  "the 
justness  of  my  intentions,  and  the  utter  groundlessness  of 
the  pretended  fears  of  the  men  who  are  filling  the  coun- 
try with  their  clamor.  If  I  go  Into  the  Presidency,  they 
will  find  me  as  I  am  on  record — nothing  less,  nothing 
more.     My  declarations  have  been  made  to  the  world 


i^o  THE  EVENING  POST 

without  reservation.  They  have  been  repeated;  and  now, 
self-respect  demands  of  me  and  the  party  that  has  elected 
me,  that  when  threatened  I  should  be  silent."  The  cor- 
respondent assured  Lincoln's  Eastern  friends  that  nature 
had  endowed  him  "with  that  sagacity,  honesty,  and  firm- 
ness which  made  Old  Hickory's  the  most  eminently  suc- 
cessful and  honorable  Administration  known  to  the 
public." 

When  South  Carolina  carried  her  threat  of  secession 
into  execution  on  Dec.  20,  every  New  York  newspaper 
had  already  Indicated  Its  attitude  toward  that  act.  Bry- 
ant had  done  so  Nov.  12,  in  an  editorial  called  "Peace- 
able Secession  an  Absurdity."  No  government  could 
have  a  day  of  assured  existence,  he  wrote,  if  it  tolerated 
the  doctrine  of  peaceable  secession,  for  It  could  have  no 
credit  or  future.  "No,  if  a  State  secedes  It  Is  in  rebellion, 
and  the  seceders  are  traitors.  Those  who  are  charged 
with  the  executive  branch  of  the  government  are  recreant 
to  their  oaths  if  they  fail  to  use  all  lawful  means  to  put 
down  such  rebellion."  The  next  day  he  added  that  "We 
look  to  Abraham  Lincoln  to  restore  American  unity,  and 
make  it  perpetual."  No  one  expected  Buchanan  to  do 
anything,  and  not  a  week  passed  without  Bryant  or  Bige- 
low  calling  him  a  traitor.  This  Insistence  that  the  seced- 
ing States  be  coerced  Into  returning  was  shared  by  the 
World,  which  was  on  the  point  of  absorbing  Webb's 
Courier  and  Eqtiirer,  and  by  the  Times. 

A  far  less  sound  view  was  taken  by  the  Tribune,  so 
long  the  most  Influential  Republican  newspaper  of  the 
nation.  Horace  Greeley  is  often  represented  as  declar- 
ing flatly  that  the  South  should  be  allowed  to  depart  In 
peace.  His  opinion,  while  not  much  more  defensible,  was 
decidedly  different.  Greeley  wished  to  make  sure  that  It 
was  the  will  of  the  Southern  majority  to  secede,  and  not 
the  mere  whim  of  fire-eating  leaders.  "I  have  said  re- 
peatedly, and  here  repeat,"  he  wrote  In  the  Tribune  of 
Jan.  14,  "that,  if  the  people  of  the  Slave  States,  or  of  the 
Cotton  States  alone,  really  wish  to  get  out  of  the  Union, 
I  am  in  favor  of  letting  them  out  so  soon  as  that  result 


SOUTHERN  SECESSION  271 

can  be  peacefully  and  constitutionally  attained.  ...  If 
they  win  .  .  .  take  first  deliberately  by  fair  vote  a  ballot 
of  their  own  citizens,  none  being  coerced  nor  Intimidated, 
and  that  vote  shall  Indicate  a  settled  resolve  to  get  out  of 
the  Union,  I  will  do  all  I  can  to  help  them  out  at  an  early 
day.  I  want  no  States  kept  In  the  Union  by  coercion;  but 
I  Insist  that  none  shall  be  coerced  out  of  it.  .  .  ." 
But  James  Gordon  Bennett's  Herald,  James  Brooks's 
Express,  Gerard  Hallock's  Journal  of  Commerce,  and 
several  minor  journals,  as  the  Daily  News  and  Day  Book, 
were  frankly  in  favor  of  letting  the  secessionists  proceed 
without  any  restraint  from  the  Federal  Government.  The 
Herald  was  much  the  most  Important,  although  the 
World  sneeringly  said  that  every  new  subscriber  meant 
two  cents  and  a  little  more  contempt  for  Bennett.  It  was 
read  everywhere  about  New  York  for  its  full  news  and 
its  smartness;  the  caustic  observations  of  Dickens  and 
William  H.  Russell  upon  New  York  journalism  were 
founded  principally  upon  it;  and  Administration  leaders 
at  Washington  found  its  comprehensive  dispatches  inval- 
uable throughout  the  war.  Maintaining  Its  old  levity  of 
tone,  the  Herald  used  at  this  period  to  speak  of  the 
World,  Tribune,  and  Times  as  the  World,  the  Flesh,  and 
the  Devil.  It  remarked  that  Lincoln  had  once  split  rails 
and  now  he  was  splitting  the  Union.  It  called  Greeley 
"the  Hon.  Massa  Greeley,"  and  it  probably  refrained 
only  by  a  supreme  effort  from  nicknaming  Bryant.  One 
of  its  cardinal  tenets  was  that  slavery  was  really  unob- 
jectionable. As  the  two  sections  drew  near  war,  it 
printed  a  description  of  slum  life  in  Liverpool,  remarking 
that  compared  with  the  English  laborer,  "the  slave  Tives 
like  a  prince."  He  had  his  cabin,  neat,  clean,  and  weather- 
proof;  he  had  his  own  garden  patch,  over  which  he  was 
lord  paramount;  he  was  well-fed,  well-lodged,  well- 
clothed,  and  rarely  overworked;  sleek,  happy,  contented, 
enjoying  his  many  holidays  with  gusto,  he  lived  to  a  great 
age.  Before  the  New  Year,  the  Herald  had  spoken  out 
plainly  against  coercion.  It  would  bring  on  a  "a  frat- 
ricidal conflict,  which  will  destroy  the  industrial  interests 


272  THE  EVENING  POST 

of  all  sections,  and  put  us  back  at  least  a  hundred  years 
in  the  estimation  of  the  civilized  world." 

As  one  State  after  another  passed  out  of  the  Union, 
therefore,  a  half  dozen  newspapers,  the  Herald,  Daily 
News,  Journal  of  Commerce,  Day  Book,  Staats  Zeitung, 
and  Coiirrier  des  Etats  Unis  were  taking  an  attitude 
friendly  to  the  South ;  one,  the  Tribune,  simply  wrung  its 
hands;  and  the  Evening  Post,  Times,  and  World  alone 
urged  severe  measures.  Jefferson  Davis,  wrote  the  Eve- 
ning Post,  "knows  that  secession  is  a  forcible  rupture  of 
an  established  government;  he  knows  that  it  must,  if  per- 
sisted in,  lead  to  war."  "If  our  Southern  brethren  think 
they  can  better  themselves  by  going  out,"  declared  Ben- 
nett's Herald  on  Jan.  17,  "in  heaven's  name  let  them  go 
in  peace.     We  cannot  keep  them  by  force." 

During  January  nearly  all  eyes  were  fastened  upon 
the  various  plans  for  keeping  the  Union  intact  by  ar- 
ranging a  compromise,  and  preposterous  some  of  these 
plans  were.  The  Crittenden  Compromise,  which  pro- 
posed making  the  Missouri  line  of  36'  30"  the  constitu- 
tional boundary  between  slavery  and  freedom  in  the  Ter- 
ritories, was  brusquely  condemned  by  the  Evening  Post. 
"In  every  respect  the  .  .  .  scheme  is  objectionable,  and 
no  Republican  who  understands  the  principles  of  his 
party,  or  who  is  faithful  to  what  he  believes  the  funda- 
mental objects  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  can  assent  to 
it  for  one  moment,"  the  journal  said  on  Jan.  26.  The 
Republican  Party  had  been  established  and  had  just  won 
its  great  victory  upon  the  principle  that  slavery  should 
not  be  extended  into  any  Territory  whatever;  how  could 
it  give  it  up  without  committing  suicide?  In  the  same 
issue  the  Evening  Post  said  that  the  violent  acts  of  the 
South,  the  seizure  of  forts  and  arsenals,  the  drilling  of 
men  to  prevent  arrests,  "are  treasonable  acts,  and  amount 
to  levying  war  upon  the  United  States,"  while  it  called 
Senator  Toombs  "a  blustering  and  cowardly  traitor." 
The  Tribune,  which  believed  that  secession  was  a  mere 
threatening  gesture,  and  that  Northern  firmness  might 
overawe  the  rebels  and  bring  them  back  into  the  Union, 


SOUTHERN  SECESSION  273 

was  also  against  the  Crittenden  plan.  *'No  compromise, 
then!  No  delusive  and  deluding  concessions!  No  sur- 
render of  principle !"  exclaimed  Greeley  on  Jan.  18.  The 
next  day  the  Tribune  evinced  its  failure  to  grasp  the  situ- 
ation by  remarking  that  if  Major  Anderson  at  Fort  Sum- 
ter had  fired  on  the  rebels  when  the  Star  of  the  West  was 
turned  back  from  his  relief,  "treason  would  have  been 
stayed.  That  act  alone  would  have  saved  Virginia  from 
plunging  into  the  fatal  gulf  of  rebellion." 

The  Times  was  as  firmly  against  a  compromise  as  the 
Evening  Post.  Stand  by  the  Union  and  the  Constitution 
first,  wrote  Raymond;  when  their  safety  is  assured,  then 
only  can  we  talk  of  guarantees  for  the  South.  "We  would 
yield  nothing  whatever  to  exactions  pressed  by  threats  of 
disunion.  .  .  ."  So  was  the  World,  which  said  that  "It 
is  of  no  use  to  mince  matters;  this  rampant  cotton  rebel- 
lion will  haul  in  its  horns  or  we  shall  have  civil  war." 
The  World  had  its  own  plan  of  restoring  harmony  by 
extinguishing  sectional  spirit.  It  proposed,  first,  to  divest 
the  Federal  executive  of  its  overgrown  patronage — the 
office-seekers  were  always  pandering  to  sectional  preju- 
dice; second,  to  improve  the  navigation  of  the  Missis- 
sippi; third,  to  construct  levees  to  prevent  Mississippi 
floods;  and  fourth,  to  build  a  Southern  Pacific  railway. 
It  naively  said  that  if  these  public  works  "could  be 
adopted  as  a  preventive  instead  of  a  remedy,  their  cost 
would  probably  be  less  than  the  cost  of  a  civil  war."  The 
Tribune  also  had  a  pacification  scheme.  It  suggested  that 
the  Federal  Government  begin  the  purchase  of  all  the 
slaves  of  Delaware,  Maryland,  Missouri,  Arkansas, 
Texas,  and  Louisiana,  about  600,000  in  all;  to  pay  not 
more  than  $100,000,000,  or  less  than  $200  each,  for 
them;  and  to  complete  the  transaction  in,  say,  1876. 

A  petition  for  the  Crittenden  compromise  circulated 
by  William  B.  Astor  found  140  signatures  at  the  Herald 
office.  By  now,  indeed,  Bennett's  Herald  was  expressing 
opinions  which  seem  madness. 

After  appealing  to  Lincoln  to  beg  the  South  to  return; 
after  appealing  to  the  Republican  Party  to  repudiate  its 


274  THE  EVENING  POST 

Chicago  platform;  after  appealing  to  Congress  to  pass 
the  Crittenden  resolution  or  submit  it  to  the  States,  the 
Herald  appealed  to  the  South.  On  Jan.  4,  railing  at  the 
imbecility  of  Congress  and  the  indifference  of  President- 
elect Lincoln,  it  proposed  that  the  Southern  States  ar- 
range a  Constitutional  Convention  for  their  own  section 
alone.  Let  this  body  adopt  amendments  to  the  Constitu- 
tion embodying  guarantees  of  the  return  of  fugitive 
slaves,  of  the  validity  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and  of 
universal  tolerance  of  opinion  respecting  slavery  as  a 
social  institution.  "Let  them  submit  these  different 
amendments  to  the  different  Northern  States,  earnestly 
inviting  their  acceptance  of  them,  and  assigning  a  period, 
similar  to  that  which  was  appointed  for  the  ratification  of 
the  Constitution  of  1787,  when  all  States  which  should 
have  agreed  to  their  proposition  should  be  considered  as 
thenceforth  forming  the  future  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica." The  whole  nation,  said  the  Herald,  would  join 
such  a  Union,  save  New  England.  Probably  the  Yankee 
States  would  stay  out.  Good  riddance  to  them.  The 
rest  of  the  country  is  sick  and  tired  of  New  England.  It 
has  had  too  much  "of  the  provincial  meanness,  bigotry, 
self-conceit,  love  for  'isms,'  hypercritical  opposition  to 
anything  and  everything,  universal  fault-finding,  hard 
bargaining,  and  systematic  home  lawlessness  .  .  .  which 
are  covering  their  section  of  the  country  with  odium." 

This  was  not  a  shabby  offer  to  the  South — to  take  any 
conditions  It  made  and  kick  the  Yankees  out.  But  the 
Herald  waxed  more  generous  still.  On  March  20,  a 
month  after  the  inauguration  of  Jefferson  Davis,  it  had 
found  the  solution  of  the  great  problem :  let  the  new  Con- 
gress, when  it  met  at  Lincoln's  call,  adopt  the  Confed- 
erate Constitution,  and  submit  It  to  the  nation  for  ratifica- 
tion by  three-fourths  of  the  States.  "This  would  settle 
the  question  and  restore  peace  and  harmony  to  a  troubled 
nation,  while  at  the  same  time  every  statesman  and  every 
man  of  common  sense  must  admit  that  the  new  Constitu- 
tion is  a  decided  improvement  on  the  old."  The  Herald 
enumerated  its  merits :  the  restriction  of  the  President  to 


SOUTHERN  SECESSION  275 

one  six-year  term,  the  budget  system  of  appropriations, 
the  Interdiction  of  Internal  Improvements  at  the  expense 
of  the  national  treasury,  and  so  on.  "Let  Mr.  Lincoln 
call  Congress  together  for  the  purpose,  and  he  will  have 
taken  the  first  step  of  a  statesman  since  he  came  to 
power."  The  Herald  did  not  say  who  It  believed  should 
be  President  under  the  new  constitution,  but  It  could 
hardly  avoid  concluding  that  Jefferson  Davis  ought  to 
be  accepted  along  with  the  Confederate  system  of  gov- 
ernment. All  the  while,  the  Journal  of  Commerce,  Ex- 
press, and  News  were  imperturbably  declaring  that  the 
South  should  be  allowed  to  depart  amicably. 

A  surprising  number  of  New  Yorkers,  Indeed,  sym- 
pathized with  this  hostility  to  coercion.     A  meeting  of 
disciples  of  Mayor  Fernando  Wood  held  at  Brooke's 
Hall  on  Dec.  15  gives  us  the  key  to  much  of  this  senti- 
ment.   Its  chairman  said  that  the  city  had  lost  $20,000,- 
000  a  month  in  Southern  orders,  an  estimate  which  mer- 
chants applauded;  while  the  rougher  element  that  later 
engaged  in  the  Draft  Riots  adopted  with  a  roar  the  res- 
olution that,  "believing  our  Southern  brethren  to  be  now 
engaged  in  the  holy  cause  of  American  liberty,  and  try- 
ing to  roll  back  the  avalanche  of  Britishism,  we  extend  to 
them  our  heartfelt  sympathy."     The  Herald  the  same 
day  computed  the  loss  of  the  North  from  the  "national 
convulsion"  at  $478,620,000,  explaining  that  flour  had 
fallen  a  dollar  a  barrel,  wheat  twenty  cents  a  bushel,  and 
many  manufactories  had  suspended,  since  Lincoln's  elec- 
tion.    Mayor  Fernando  Wood,  In  his  message  published 
Jan.  8,  proposed  that  If  disunion  took  place.  New  York 
should  declare  itself  a  free  city,  clinging  to  its  commerce 
with  both  sections.    Wood  was  a  Philadelphia  Quaker  by 
birth,  who  began  life  as  a  cigar-maker,  and  made  his  way 
In  politics  by  a  physique  so  handsome,  a  personality  so 
fascinating,  and  a  character  so  unscrupulous  that  he  has 
been  well  called  the  successor  of  Aaron  Burr.    The  Eve- 
ning Post  remarked  that  It  had  always  known  he  was  a 
knave,  but  it  had  not  before  suspected  him  of  being  so 
egregious  a  fool,  and  asked  whether  the  city  in  seceding 


276  THE  EVENING  POST 

would  take  the  Hudson  River,  Long  Island  Sound,  New 
York  Central,  and  Erie  Canal  with  It — It  couldn^t  do 
without  them.  Even  the  Herald  sneered  at  his  proposal. 
But  William  H.  Russell,  visiting  the  city,  as  late  as  March 
was  shocked  by  the  Indifference  which  prominent  citizens 
showed  to  the  Impending  catastrophe. 

This  Indifference  the  Evening  Post,  Times,  and  Tribune 
were  loyally  trying  to  dispel.  On  Feb.  2,  when  five  States 
had  seceded,  the  Evening  Post  warned  them  that  the  act 
meant  war.  "No  one  doubts  that  If  the  people  of  those 
States  should  transfer  them  back  to  Spain  or  France,  the 
United  States  would  be  prepared  to  recover  them  at  all 
the  hazards  of  war;  and,  for  the  same  reason,  she  will 
recover  them  from  the  hands  of  any  other  'foreign 
powers'  under  any  other  names."  A  fortnight  later  Bry- 
ant reiterated: 

.  .  .  Our  government  means  no  war,  and  will  not,  if  it  can 
be  avoided,  shed  a  drop  of  blood;  If  war  comes,  it  must  be  made 
by  the  South;  but  let  the  South  understand,  when  it  does  come, 
that  eighty  years  of  enterprise,  of  accumulation,  and  of  progress 
in  all  the  arts  of  warfare  have  not  been  lost  upon  the  North. 
Cool  in  temperament,  peaceful  in  its  pursuits,  loving  industry  and 
trade  more  than  fighting,  it  has  yet  the  old  blood  of  the  Saxon 
in  its  veins,  and  will  go  to  battle  with  the  same  ponderous  and 
irresistible  energy^  with  which  it  has  reared  its  massive  civiliza- 
tion out  of  the  primitive  wilderness. 

The  Times  was  equally  emphatic.  When  the  Journal 
of  Commerce  argued  that  two  American  nations,  one  free 
and  one  slave,  might  live  as  cordially  together  as  the 
Protestant  and  Catholic  parts  of  Switzerland,  the  Trib- 
une reminded  It  that  In  1846-7  the  Catholic  cantons  had 
tried  to  secede,  and  the  Swiss  government  had  instantly 
crushed  the  movement. 

Bryant  was  keenly  Interested  all  the  while  In  the  forma- 
tion of  Lincoln's  Cabinet.  Immediately  after  Lincoln's 
nomination  he  had  written  him  saying  that  "I  was  not 
without  apprehensions  that  the  nomination  might  fall 
upon  some  person  encumbered  with  bad  associates,  and  it 
was  with  a  sense  of  relief  and  infinite  satisfaction  that  I, 


SOUTHERN  SECESSION  277 

with  thousands  of  others,  heard  the  news  of  your  nom- 
ination." He  was  desirous  of  having  Cabinet  places 
given  his  friends  Chase  and  Gideon  Welles,  and  Parke 
Godwin  prints  in  his  biography  the  three  letters  In  which 
he  urged  the  claims  of  these  men  and  protested  against 
Cameron.  He  also  wrote  Lincoln  in  behalf  of  a  low 
tariff.  But  the  biography  does  not  contain  the  letter 
which  Hiram  Barney,  Collector  of  the  Port,  wrote  Bryant 
from  Chicago  Immediately  (Jan.  17,  1861)  after  seeing 
Lincoln  regarding  his  Cabinet: 

I  went  with  Mapes,  Opdyke,  and  Hageboom  from  Washington 
to  Columbus  and  Springfield.  We  saw  and  conversed  freely  and 
fully  with  Gov.  Chase  and  Mr.  Lincoln.  Mr.  Lincoln  received 
your  letter  announcing  our  mission  the  night  previous  to  our 
arrival.  I  thank  you  for  writing  it.  It  was  influential,  I  have 
no  doubt,  in  procuring  for  us  the  favorable  reception  and  hearing 
which  was  accorded  to  us.  Mr.  Lincoln  has  invited  to  his  Cabinet 
only  three  persons,  to  wit — Mr.  Bates,  Mr.  Seward,  and  Mr. 
Cameron.  All  these  have  accepted.  In  regard  to  the  latter- 
named,  however,  Mr.  Lincoln  became  satisfied  that  he  had  made 
a  mistake,  and  wrote  him  requesting  him  to  withdraw  his  ac- 
ceptancy  or  decline.  Mr.  Cameron  refused  to  answer  the  letter 
and  was  greatly  offended  by  it.  He,  however,  authorized  a  mutual 
friend  to  telegraph  and  he  did  so — that  Mr.  Cameron  would  not 
on  any  account  accept  a  seat  in  his  Cabinet.  Mr.  Lincoln  has 
thus  a  quarrel  on  his  hands  which  he  is  anxious  to  adjust  satis- 
factorily before  he  proceeds  further  in  his  formation  of  his  Cabinet. 
He  is  advised  from  Washington  not  to  conclude  further  upon  the 
members  of  his  Cabinet  until  he  reaches  Washington,  which  will 
be  probably  about  the  middle  of  February — and  he  has  concluded 
to  act  according  to  this  advice.  We  tried  to  change  this  purpose, 
but  I  fear  in  vain.  He  has  not  offered  a  place  to  Mr.  Chase.  He 
wants  and  expects  to  invite  him  to  the  Treasury  Department. 
But  he  fears  this  will  offend  Pennsylvania,  and  he  wants  to  recon- 
cile the  Republicans  of  that  State  to  it  before  it  is  settled.  He 
thinks  Mr.  Chase  would  be  willing  to  let  the  matter  stand  so  and 
leave  the  option  with  him  (Mr.  Lincoln)  of  taking  him  when  he 
can  do  so  without  embarrassment.  He  knows  that  Gov.  Chase 
does  not  desire  to  go  into  the  Cabinet  and  prefers  the  Senate — 
but  he  relies  upon  Gov.  Chase's  patriotism  to  overcome  the  objec- 
tions which  arise  from  this  unpleasant  state  of  things. 


278  THE  EVENING  POST 

He  wants  to  take  Judd,  but  this  selection  will  offend  some  of 
his  friends  and  he  does  not  decide  upon  it.  Welles  of  Connecticut 
is  his  preference  for  New  England.  Blair  of  Maryland  is  favor- 
ably considered.  Dayton  will  either  go  into  his  Cabinet  or  will 
have  the  mission  to  England  or  France.  One  of  these  missions 
he  intends  to  give  to  Cassius  M.  Clay.  Caleb  B.  Smith  of  Indiana 
is  urged  upon  him  and  he  may  have  to  take  him  instead  of  Judd. 
Caleb  is  almost  as  objectionable  as  Cameron,  and  for  similar  rea- 
sons. He  received  good  naturedly  and  with  some  compliments 
my  Cabinet  which  I  gave  him  in  pencil  on  a  slip  of  paper,  rather 
in  joke — as  follows: 

Lincoln  and  Judd  Bates  and  Blair 

Seward  and  Chase  Dayton  and  Welles 

He  considers  Chase  the  ablest  and  best  man  in  America.  He  is 
determined  that  Justice  shall  be  done  to  all  his  friends,  especially 
to  the  Republicans  of  Democratic  antecedents,  and  Mr.  Seward 
understands  that  he  will  not  allow  the  Democratic  .  .  .  Re- 
publicans of  New  York  to  be  deprived  of  their  full  share  of  influ- 
ence and  patronage  under  his  Administration.  He  is  opposed  to 
all  offers  of  compromise  by  Republicans  which  can  in  the  least 
affect  the  integrity  of  the  principles  as  set  forth  in  the  Chicago 
platform. 

If  he  would  act  now  on  his  own  judgment  and  preferences  he 
would  make  a  good  Cabinet  not  much  different  from  that  I  have 
above  mentioned.  What  he  will  ultimately  do  after  reaching 
Washington  no  one,  not  even  himself,  can  tell.  He  wants  to 
please  and  satisfy  all  his  friends. 

As  this  letter  Indicates,  the  Evening  Post  office  was  one 
of  the  chief  Eastern  centers  from  which  the  "Democratic 
Republicans"  in  these  dark  months  tried  to  make  their 
influence  felt  upon  the  incoming  Administration. 

Lincoln's  inaugural  address  was  warmly  applauded  by 
the  Evening  Post.  Bryant  had  seen  the  President-elect 
at  the  Astor  House  as  he  passed  through  New  York,  and 
taken  new  faith  in  him.  "Admirable  as  the  inaugural  ad- 
dress is  In  all  its  parts — convincing  in  argument,  concise 
and  pithy  in  manner  and  simple  in  style — the  generous  and 
conciliatory  tone  is  the  most  admirable,"  the  poet  wrote. 
"Mr.  Lincoln  thoroughly  refutes  the  theory  of  secession. 
He  points  out  its  follies  and  warns  the  disaffected  dis- 


SOUTHERN  SECESSION  279 

tricts  against  Its  consequences,  but  he  does  so  In  the  kindly, 
pitying  manner  of  a  father  who  reasons  with  an  erring 
child."  On  inauguration  day  the  Evening  Post  had  again 
predicted  war  with  the  rebels,  and  again  declared  that 
"the  Unionists  of  our  States  will  arise  and  deal  them  the 
destruction  they  deserve."  The  Tribune  regarded  the 
message  In  the  same  way.  It  especially  praised  "the  tone 
of  almost  tenderness,"  below  which  Lincoln's  iron  deter- 
mination was  evident.  The  message  would  carry  to 
twenty  millions  the  tidings  that  the  Federal  Government 
still  lived,  "with  a  Man  at  the  head  of  it."  The  World 
and  Times  spoke  In  similar  terms. 

But  the  secessionist  press  abused  this  noble  state  paper 
roundly.  The  Herald,  which  had  been  praising  Buchanan 
as  a  wise  and  just  statesman,  and  attacking  Lincoln  as  an 
incompetent,  said  that  the  new  President  might  almost 
as  well  have  told  his  audience  a  funny  story  and  let  it  go. 
His  speech  was  a  body  of  vague  generalities  artfully  de- 
signed to  allow  its  readers  to  make  whatever  interpreta- 
tions they  pleased.  "It  Is  neither  candid  nor  statesman- 
like; nor  does  it  possess  any  essential  of  dignity  or  patri- 
otism. It  would  have  caused  a  Washington  to  mourn, 
and  would  have  inspired  Jefferson,  Madison,  or  Jackson 
with  contempt."  Gerard  Hallock  in  the  Journal  of  Com- 
merce  involved  himself  In  a  neat  contradiction,  writing: 
"The  President  puts  forth  earnest  professions  of  love 
for  the  Union,  and  places  justly  and  properly  much  stress 
upon  his  duty  to  preserve  it  and  execute  the  laws.  But 
he  commits  the  practical  error  of  setting  up  the  theory 
of  an  unbroken  Union,  against  the  stubborn  fact  of  a 
divided  and  dissevered  one."  Why,  asked  Bryant,  was 
it  "just"  for  the  President  to  dwell  upon  his  duty  to  pre- 
serve the  Union,  and  yet  "a  practical  error"  to  do  so? 

Thus  the  nation  moved  rapidly  toward  civil  war. 
While  the  Herald,  Journal  of  Commerce,  Express,  and 
Daily  News  still  talked  of  compromise,  actually  they  had 
given  up  hope  of  it  and  spent  their  chief  energies  in  de- 
crying coercion ;  the  first-named  having  admitted  as  much 
in  an  editorial  of  Feb.  3  headed  "No  Compromise  Now 


28o  THE  EVENING  POST 

Except  That  of  a  Peaceable  Separation."  In  fact,  all 
these  journals  found  In  the  Idea  of  a  division  much  to 
commend.  At  the  end  of  January,  Bennett's  writers 
began  preaching  Imperialistic  doctrines.  *'North  Amer- 
ica Is  too  large  for  one  government,"  the  Herald  reflected 
on  the  24th,  "but  establish  two  and  they  In  good  time  will 
cover  the  continent."  The  next  day,  under  the  title, 
"Manifest  Destiny  of  the  North  and  South,"  It  drew  an 
alluring  picture  of  the  American  conquests  that  would 
follow  the  dissolution  of  the  Union.  Inevitably,  the  Con- 
federacy would  subdue  Mexico,  Cuba,  and  other  Carib- 
bean lands.  The  United  States  would  conquer  Canada. 
The  two  great  nations  would  be  the  most  friendly  of 
allies.  "Northern  troops  may  yet  have  to  repel  invaders 
of  the  possessions  of  slave-holders  in  Mexico  and  Vene- 
zuela, and  our  fleet  will  joyfully  aid  In  dispersing  new 
Spanish  armadas  on  the  coast  of  Cuba.  Nor  do  we 
doubt  that  .  .  .  under  the  walls  of  Quebec,  and  on  the 
banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  legions  from  Louisiana,  Ala- 
bama, and  South  Carolina  will  aid  us."  This  glorious 
vision  of  unlimited  booty  was  repeatedly  dwelt  upon. 

The  Herald  had  less  Northern  influence  than  Its  large 
circulation  would  seem  to  Imply,  and  was  hearkened  to 
chiefly  at  the  South.  Many  secessionists,  remembering 
the  business  and  social  connections  of  the  South  with  the 
metropolis,  and  the  large  Democratic  majority  New  York 
generally  gave,  believed  that  the  city  would  assist  to 
divide  the  North  and  aid  the  rebellion.  "The  New  York 
Herald  and  New  York  Evening  Express  have  done  much 
toward  disseminating  this  false  theory,"  said  the  New 
Orleans  Picayune  later.  The  Chicago  Tribune  that  sum- 
mer quoted  a  Southern  visitor  as  saying  "that  we  of  the 
North  can  have  little  or  no  idea  of  the  pestilent  Influence 
which  the  New  York  News  and  other  journals  of  that 
sort  have  exerted  upon  the  popular  mind  of  that  section." 
Probably  less  harm  was  done  the  Union  by  Bennett's 
erratic  Ideas  than  by  Greeley's  Influential  opinion  that  if 
the  South  was  determined  to  go,  go  she  ought.  Bryant's 
editorials  in  the  Evening  Post,  above  those  of  any  other 


SOUTHERN  SECESSION  281 

New  York  journal,  expressed  an  elevated,  unwavering, 
and  steadying  demand  for  loyalty  to  the  Constitution. 
He  had  no  patience  with  Greeley's  acquiescence  In  a  pop- 
ular-sovereignty doctrine  of  secession.  He  was  a  far 
abler  writer  than  any  man  on  the  staff  of  the  Times  or 
World,  even  Raymond.  His  superior  steadfastness  and 
shrewdness  of  judgment  was  strikingly  Illustrated  just 
before  the  war  began. 

On  April  3,  as  If  by  concert,  the  Tribune  and  Times 
published  long  and  emphatic  editorials  attacking  Lincoln 
for  his  alleged  Indecision  and  Inactivity.  The  Tribune 
headed  Its  editorial  "Come  to  the  Point!"  and  demanded 
that  a  programme  be  laid  down.  Greeley  apparently 
cared  little  what  this  programme  should  be.  "If  the 
Union  is  to  be  maintained  at  all  hazards,  let  the  word 
be  passed  along  the  line  that  the  laws  are  to  be  enforced. 
.  .  .  If  the  secession  of  the  Gulf  States — and  of  any 
more  that  choose  to  follow — Is  to  be  regarded  as  a  fixed 
fact,  let  that  be  proclaimed,  and  let  the  line  of  revenue 
collection  be  established  and  maintained  this  side  of 
them."  The  Times  devoted  two  columns  to  "Wanted — 
A  Policy."  The  Administration,  it  said,  had  fallen  so 
far  short  of  public  expectations  that  the  Union  was 
weaker  than  a  month  before.  Indeed,  the  Administration 
had  exhibited  "a  blindness  and  a  stolidity  without  a  paral- 
lel In  the  history  of  intelligent  statesmanship."  Lincoln 
had  "spent  time  and  strength  in  feeding  rapacious  and 
selfish  politicians,  which  should  have  been  bestowed  upon 
saving  the  Union";  and  "we  tell  him  ,  .  .  that  he  must 
go  up  to  a  higher  level  than  he  has  yet  reached,  before  he 
can  see  and  realize  the  high  duties  to  which  he  has  been 
called."  Such  utterances  lent  too  much  support  to  the 
Herald's  constant  statements  that  "the  Lincoln  Adminis- 
tration is  cowardly,  mean,  and  vicious,"  its  constant  ref- 
erences to  "the  incompetent,  ignorant,  and  desperate 
'Honest  Abe.'  " 

In  a  crushing  editorial  next  day,  Bryant  demolished 
these  peevish  outbursts.  First,  he  pointed  out,  it  was 
hard  within  thirty  days  to  decide  what  course  was  best 


282  THE  EVENING  POST 

as  regarded  the  seceding  States  and  the  wavering  border 
States.  The  Cabinet  was  said  to  be  divided,  and  the 
most  careful  reflection,  Investigation,  and  debate  was 
necessary  for  a  question  so  big  with  the  fate  of  the  repub- 
lic. Second,  how  could  the  facile  critics  know  that  Lin- 
coln had  not  fixed  upon  his  policy,  but  concluded  to  make 
It  known  by  execution,  not  by  a  windy  proclamation?  *'If 
Fort  Sumter  Is  to  be  reinforced,  should  we  give  the  rebels 
previous  notice?"  There  existed  other  considerations, 
as  the  fact  that  every  day  officers  in  the  army  and  navy 
were  going  over  to  the  rebels,  and  if  Lincoln  decided  upon 
an  energetic  course  It  would  be  indispensable  to  be  able 
to  count  on  an  energetic  execution  in  every  contingency. 
This  answer  displayed  an  admirable  patience — a  patience 
of  which  Bryant  might  well  have  had  a  larger  stock  in  the 
four  years  to  come. 

The  first  edition  of  the  Evening  Post  on  April  13  car- 
ried the  news  that  the  bombardment  of  Fort  Sumter  had 
begun,  and  carried  also  an  editorial  written  with  all  Bry- 
ant's high  fervor: 

This  is  a  day  which  will  be  ever  memorable  in  our  annals.  To- 
day treason  has  risen  from  blustering  words  to  cowardly  deeds. 
Men  made  reckless  by  a  long  life  of  political  gambling — for  years 
cherishing  treason  next  their  hearts  while  swearing  fealty  to  the 
government — have  at  last  goaded  themselves  on  to  murder  a 
small  band  of  faithful  soldiers.  They  have  deliberately  chosen  the 
issue  of  battle.  To-day,  who  hesitates  in  his  allegiance  is  a  traitor 
with  them.  .  .  . 

To-day  the  nation  looks  to  the  government  to  put  down  treason 
forever.  ...  It  will  not  grudge  the  men  or  the  money  which 
are  needed.  We  have  enjoyed  for  eighty  years  the  blessings  of 
liberty  and  constitutional  government.  It  is  a  small  sacrifice  we 
are  now  to  lay  upon  the  altar.  In  the  name  of  constitutional 
liberty,  in  the  name  of  law  and  order,  in  the  name  of  all  that  is 
dear  to  freemen,  we  shall  put  down  treason  and  restore  the 
supremacy  of  the  Constitution. 

The  day  was  one  of  intense  excitement.  The  Evening 
Post  of  Monday,  April  15,  reported  that  thousands  of 
eager  inquirers  had  thronged  the  streets  in  the  neighbor- 


SOUTHERN  SECESSION  283 

hood  of  the  office  and  packed  the  counting-room  down- 
stairs until  there  was  no  room  for  a  single  additional  per- 
son. The  successive  editions  were  seized  upon  madly. 
At  five  the  first  rumor  of  Sumter^s  surrender  came  over 
the  wires,  and  at  five-thirty  it  was  confirmed.  Within  a 
space  of  seconds  rather  than  minutes  the  fourth  edition, 
containing  the  complete  news,  was  being  cried  on  the 
streets.  The  Herald  next  morning  sold  135,000  copies, 
a  world's  record.  That  Monday  Bryant's  leading  edito- 
rial, "The  Union,  Now  and  Forever,"  took  its  text  in  the 
President's  call  for  volunteers.  "If  he  calls  for  only 
75,000,"  said  the  Evening  Post,  "it  is  because  he  knows 
that  he  can  have  a  million  if  he  needs  them."  George 
Gary  Eggleston  has  said  that  he  and  Bryant's  other  asso- 
ciates were  often  amazed  to  see  how  calmly  he  would 
write  an  editorial  that  proved  full  of  intense  eloquence, 
every  line  blazing.  This  was  such  an  editorial,  ending  in 
a  ringing  peroration:  "  'God  speed  the  President  I'  is  the 
voice  of  millions  of  determined  freemen  to-day." 


CHAPTER  THIRTEEN 

THE  CRITICAL  DAYS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

When  Sumter  brought  the  North  to  Its  feet  as  one 
man,  as  Lowell  wrote,  the  press  and  general  public  be- 
lieved the  war  would  be  brief.  The  best  editorial  judg- 
ment in  New  York  had  been  that  the  rebellion  could  be 
strangled  by  a  blockade  alone.  "A  half  dozen  ships  of 
war  stationed  at  the  proper  points  is  all  that  Is  wanted," 
said  the  Times  on  Feb.  ii,  1861.  "In  a  few  months'  time 
the  Southern  Confederacy  would  be  completely  starved 
out."  The  Tribune,  arguing  Jan.  22  for  closing  the 
Southern  ports,  had  predicted  that  as  a  consequence  "the 
South  will  decline,  and  finally  collapse.  In  utter  humilia- 
tion. And  this  will  not  result  from  bloody  wars,  but 
from  the  peaceful  operation  of  the  laws  of  trade."  On 
the  same  date  the  Evening  Post  remarked  that  the  seces- 
sion disease  required  not  cautery  or  the  knife,  but  a  little 
judicious  regimen.  Uncle  Sam  might  crush  the  seceding 
States  with  ease.  "He  could  devastate  every  cotton  field, 
and  level  every  seaboard  city  In  less  than  a  year.  If  he 
were  so  foolhardy  and  malignant  as  they  have  shown 
themselves  to  be."  It  must  be  remembered  that  at  the 
time  of  all  these  utterances  Virginia,  North  Carolina, 
Tennessee,  and  Arkansas  had  not  yet  joined  the  South. 
But  In  his  call  to  arms  just  after  Sumter  Bryant  allowed 
himself  to  boast  that  every  loyal  arm  was  a  match  for  ten 
traitors.  A  pathetic  Evening  Post  editorial  of  June  15, 
"The  Beginning  of  the  End,"  following  the  Confederate 
evacuation  of  Harper's  Ferry,  predicted  that  Jeflferson 
Davis  meant  to  make  a  desperate  effort  at  Manassas,  for 
"his  cause  is  on  Its  last  legs,  and  unless  he  puts  forth  a 
bold  stroke  now,  It  Is  gone." 

It  was  because  the  Tribune  was  so  confident  of  an  easy 
victory  that  It  raised  the  cry,   "On  to  Richmond  I"  in 

284 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  285 

June  and  early  July.  Simply  because  it  shared  the  same 
confidence,  the  Evening  Post,  with  greater  wisdom, 
pleaded  for  deliberation  and  care,  and  carried  editorials 
with  such  headings  as  "Patience I''  (July  i).  After  the 
advance  began,  it  thought  that  Jefferson  Davis  ought  to 
be  captured  within  a  month  (July  17). 

When  upon  this  over-confidence  fell  the  shock  of  the 
rout  at  Bull  Run,  the  Post  felt  it  necessary  to  hearten  the 
North  by  minimizing  the  defeat.  There  was  no  need  to 
labor  the  moral  that  the  war  was  going  to  be  long  and 
hard,  and  Bryant  was  worried  lest  the  public  should  be 
depressed.  Frederic  Law  Olmsted  wrote  him  that  "al- 
though it  is  not  best  to  say  it  publicly,  you  should  know, 
at  least,  that  the  retreat  was  generally  of  the  worst  char- 
acter, and  is  already  in  its  results  most  disastrous."  The 
Post  harped  for  some  time  upon  the  lesson  of  the  need 
for  better  discipline  and  officers.  But  it  also  tried  to  main- 
tain that  Manassas  was  the  Sebastopol  of  the  rebels,  a 
powerful  natural  position;  that  "in  any  fair,  open,  hand- 
to-hand  fight,  the  Union  troops  are  too  much  for  the 
seceders" ;  and  even  that  the  moral  effect  of  the  battle 
would  be  in  the  North's  favor.  Greeley  felt  the  same 
impulse  when,  under  the  reaction  from  his  "On  to  Rich- 
mond!" mischief,  he  promised  that  the  Tribune  would 
cease  nagging  the  army,  and  devote  itself  to  inspiriting  the 
public. 

As  soon  as  they  perceived  that  the  war  would  be  bitter, 
the  editors  of  the  Post  took  their  stand  with  what  the 
historian  Rhodes  calls  the  radical  party  of  the  North; 
the  party  of  Secretary  Chase,  Senators  Trumbull  and 
Sumner,  and  Gen.  Carl  Schurz.  The  paper's  Washing- 
ton correspondent  early  (May  3)  divided  the  Cabinet 
into  radicals — Welles,  Chase,  Blair — and  conservatives 
— Seward,  Bates,  and  Smith.  The  radicals  wanted  the 
war  prosecuted  with  intense  energy,  no  thought  of  com- 
promise, and  no  particular  regard  for  the  feelings  of  the 
border  States  and  Northern  Democrats.  Always  ardent, 
sometimes  precipitate,  they  disliked  the  cautious  Seward, 
and  sometimes  lost  patience  with  Lincoln  himself.     In 


286  THE  EVENING  POST 

the  end  their  policies  were  usually  adopted,  but  Lincoln's 
wisdom  lay  in  not  adopting  them  prematurely;  as  Schurz 
admitted  in  1864,  when  he  wrote  a  schoolmate  that  he 
had  often  thought  Lincoln  wrong,  but  in  the  end  had 
always  found  him  right. 

Much  of  the  radicalism  of  Bryant  and  Parke  Godwin 
was  quite  sound.  In  the  first  month  the  Evening  Post 
published- HQ^  fewer  than  four  editorials  asking  for  a 
hurried  and  strict  blockade  of  the  South,  and  prophesying 
that  it  would  "put  an  end  to  the  rebeUion  more  quickly 
than  any  other  plan  of  action."  On  July  20  it  anticipated 
Ericsson  by  asking  for  ironclads,  recalling  that  Robert  L. 
Stevens  had  begun  building  a  floating  armored  battery 
under  an  act  of  Congress  passed  in  1842,  but  had  never 
finished  it.  The  paper  thought  that  ''half  a  dozen  thor- 
oughly shot-proof  gunboats,  of  light  draft,"  could  silence 
Forts  Sumter,  Pulaski,  and  Jackson,  or  better  still,  run 
past  them  and  dominate  Charleston,  Savannah,  and  New 
Orleans.  It  asked  for  a  national  draft  on  July  9,  1862, 
nine  months  before  Congress  passed  a  law  for  one.  Lin- 
coln's early  policy  was  to  free  and  protect  all  Southern 
negroes  who,  having  been  employed  in  the  military  service 
of  the  Confederacy,  came  within  the  lines  of  the  Northern 
commands,  but  this  did  not  satisfy  Bryant.  On  Dec.  6, 
1 861,  he  asked  Congress  to  confiscate  the  property  of  the 
rebels,  appoint  State  commissioners  of  forfeiture  to  take 
charge  of  it,  and  as  fast  as  negroes  came  within  Northern 
reach,  make  them  freemen. 

Bryant  was  in  direct  communication  with  radical  offi- 
cials in  Washington  and  radical  commanders  in  the  field. 
He  corresponded  with  Secretary  Chase;  Gen.  James 
Wadsworth  and  Gen.  E.  A.  Hitchcock  wrote  him  start- 
ingly  frank  letters;  and  he  heard  regularly  from  Consul- 
General  Bigelow  in  Paris.  The  slowness  with  which  the 
war  dragged  on  was  deplored  by  the  Evening  Post  even 
as  it  was  deplored  by  Chase,  Schurz,  and  Sumner.  The 
paper  did  not  criticize  Lincoln  with  the  signal  lack  of 
judgment  Greeley  often  showed,  much  less  with  the  ran- 
corous hostility  of  Bennett's  Herald  or  the  now  Demo- 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  287 

cratic  World.  But  by  the  middle  of  September,  1861, 
it  was  censuring  him  for  the  reluctance  with  which  he  ^^ 
signed  the  Confiscation  Act,  and  reminding  him  that  "his 
official  position  is  in  the  lead,  and  not  in  the  rear."  On 
Oct.  1 1  it  published  an  editorial,  "Playing  With  War," 
in  which  it  criticized  the  Administration  for  lukewarm- 
ness  and  declared  that  the  public  wanted  active  meas- 
ures; "the  more  energetic,  the  more  effective  these  meas- 
ures, the  more  telling  the  blow,  the  more  they  will 
applaud." 

These  complaints,  the  complaints  of  a  large  party  all 
over  the  North  and  of  an  able  Congressional  group,  re- 
doubled as  the  first  half  of  1862  passed  with  almost  no 
news  from  Virginia  but  that  of  disasters.  On  July  8 
the  Post  asked  three  sharp  questions.  Why  had  enlist- 
ments been  stopped  three  or  four  months  earlier — for 
Stanton,  believing  success  at  hand,  had  foolishly  halted 
the  recruiting  on  April  3  ?  Why  had  the  militia  of  the 
loyal  States  never,  since  the  war  began,  been  reorganized, 
drilled,  and  armed?  And  why  had  no  great  arsenals  of  ^ 
munitions  been  collected?  "We  have  been  sluggish  in  our 
preparations  and  timid  in  our  execution,"  the  paper  ad- 
monished Washington.  "Let  us  change  all  this."  Such 
complaints  were  natural  and  useful  in  the  dark  hour 
when  McClellan's  army  recoiled  after  bloody  fighting 
from  its  first  advance  on  Richmond.  Bryant  also  did  well 
to  press  his  attacks  upon  corruption  in  government  con- 
tracts, and  political  favoritism  in  military  appointments. 
When  this  month  Congress  authorized  the  use  of  negroes 
in  camp  service  and  trench  digging,  he  reasonably  found 
fault  with  the  Administration  for  its  slowness  in  acting 
upon  the  authorization. 

But  Bryant's  "radicalism"  was  not  commendable  when 
he  complained  of  the  delay  in  emancipating  the  slaves; 
of  the  prominence  of  Northern  Democrats,  not  hostile 
to  slavery,  in  the  army  and  at  Washington;  and  of  the 
consideration  given  border  State  sentiment.  Had  Lin- 
coln acted  rashly  in  the  early  months  of  the  war,  he  would 
have  forced  Kentucky  and  Missouri  into  the  arms  of  the 


2  88  THE  EVENING  POST 

South,  and  he  thought  (Sept.  22,  1861)  that  "to  lose 
Kentucky  is  nearly  the  same  as  to  lose  the  whole  game." 
Had  he  made  haste  to  emancipate  the  slaves,  he  would 
irretrievably  have  offended  powerful  elements  in  the 
North  and  the  Border  States  which  were  willing  to  fight 
for  the  Union,  but  not  to  fight  against  slavery.  Military 
historians  have  generally  condemned  Lincoln's  interfer- 
ence with  McClellan's  plans  in  the  early  spring  of  1862, 
an  interference  into  which  he  was  forced  by  such  pressure 
as  Bryant  was  exerting.  The  Evening  Post  was  unjust  to 
Lincoln  when  it  explained  (July  7,  1862)  why  the  people 
suspected  him  of  indecision.  "He  has  trusted  too  much 
to  his  subordinates;  he  has  not  been  sufficiently  peremp- 
tory with  them,  either  with  his  generals  or  his  Secretaries; 
and  his  whole  Administration  has  been  marked  by  a  cer- 
tain tone  of  languor  and  want  of  earnestness  which  has 
not  corresponded  with  the  wishes  of  the  people."  It  was 
unjust  when  it  spoke  again  (July  23)  of  Lincoln's  "slum- 
bers," and  of  the  "drowsy  influence  of  border  State 
opiates." 

In  condemning  the  military  Incapacity  of  the  Union 
generals  in  the  East  the  newspaper  was  upon  firmer 
ground.  McClellan  became  commander  of  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac  immediately  after  Bull  Run,  and  was  made 
commander-in-chief  of  all  the  armies  on  Nov.  i,  1861. 
As  the  new  year  arrived  without  any  movement,  Bryant 
began  grumbling  over  the  idea  held  by  many  officers 
"that  the  wisest  way  of  conducting  the  war  is  to  weary 
out  the  South  with  delays."  He  argued  that  if  the  North 
did  not  show  more  energy,  France  or  England  might  even- 
tually interfere.  "If  we  understand  the  case,"  he  wrote 
caustically  on  Feb.  6,  "Gen.  McClellan  has  infinite  claims 
upon  our  gratitude  for  the  discipline  which  he  has  given 
to  the  army,  but  that  discipline  Is  still  too  Imperfect  to 
warrant  any  movement."  He  pointed  out  that  the  enemy 
was  relying  upon  this  Inefficiency,  and  was  so  confident 
of  the  situation  in  Virginia  that  Beauregard  had  just 
been  dispatched  to  reinforce  the  Confederate  army  in  the 
West.    A  few  days  later  Bryant  received  a  letter  which 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  289 

Gen.  Wadsworth  wrote  him  from  camp,  denouncing  Mc- 
Clellan  roundly: 

I  repeat  the  conclusion  intimated  in  my  last  letter.  The  com- 
mander-in-chief is  almost  inconceivably  incompetent,  or  he  has 
his  own  plans — widely  different  from  those  entertained  by  the 
people  of  the  North — of  putting  dovv^n  this  Rebellion.  I  have  just 
read  the  gloomy  reports  from  Europe,  threatening  intervention, 
etc.  In  my  despair,  I  write  in  the  faint  hope  of  arousing  our 
Press  to  speak  out  what  is  in  the  hearts  of  ninety-nine  one  hun- 
dredths of  the  army,  and  nine-tenths  of  the  country — the  com- 
mander-in-chief is  incompetent  or  disloyal.  I  have  come  slowly 
to  this  conclusion.  No  man  greeted  his  appointment  more  cor- 
dially than  I  did.  There  is  not  the  shadow  of  any  personal  feeling 
in  my  conviction.  I  have  nothing  personal  to  complain  of.  I  must 
again  caution  you,  that  all  this  is  strictly  confidential. 

Wadsworth  reiterated  this  opinion  all  spring,  while 
Bryant  heard  from  Gen.  John  Pope  and  Gen.  Hitchcock 
in  the  same  vein.  It  was  not  until  May  5  that  McClellan 
fought  his  first  battle,  though  he  had  held  command  since 
the  preceding  July.  The  Evening  Post  was  full  of  hope 
in  the  Peninsular  campaign  that  followed,  warning  Mc- 
Clellan not  to  overestimate  the  enemy's  forces,  and  that 
"hitherto  our  great  fault  has  been  that  we  have  not  fol- 
lowed up  our  successes."  Its  dejection  was  proportion- 
ately great  when  in  the  first  days  of  July  the  campaign 
ended  in  failure,  and  McClellan  withdrew  his  army  from 
the  position  he  had  reached  immediately  in  front  of  Rich- 
mond. The  disgust  of  the  radicals  with  McClellan  was 
now  complete,  and  the  Post  was  as  eloquent  as  the 
Tribune  or  Times  in  attacking  him.  On  July  3  it  mourn- 
fully remarked  that  "while  the  cause  cannot  perhaps  be 
defeated  even  by  incompetence,"  it  could  be  gravely  im- 
perilled. "We  have  suffered  long  enough  from  inaction 
and  overcaution.  Henceforth  we  must  have  action.  .  .  . 
If  it  be  asked  who  is  the  best  man,  we  can  only  say  that 
it  is  Mr.  Lincoln's  business  to  know,  but  bitter  experience 
has  taught  us  that  Gen.  McClellan  is  not."  Lincoln  was 
admonished  that  he  must  open  his  eyes  without  a  mo- 
ment's delay  to  the  exigency,  dismiss  every  slothful  or 


290  THE  EVENING  POST 

imbecile  leader,  infuse  energy  and  unity  into  his  Cabinet, 
and  recruit  new  armies.  It  was  now  that  the  Post  began 
asking  for  conscription,  while  it  gave  a  ringing  endorse- 
ment to  Lincoln's  call  for  "three  hundred  thousand  more." 

The  Herald,  incapable  of  blaming  a  Democrat  like 
McClellan,  in  July  attacked  Stanton  for  the  army's  fail- 
ure, but  the  Evening  Post  showed  that  McClellan  him- 
self had  said  that  he  had  more  than  enough  troops  to 
take  Richmond.  The  Chicago  Tribune  later  accused 
it  of  injustice  to  Lincoln  in  saying  that  McClellan  should 
have  been  dismissed  earlier,  since  Lincoln  could  not  do 
so  without  offending  loyal  Democrats.  That,  rejoined  the 
Post,  is  precisely  the  ground  for  our  objection  to  Mc- 
Clellan; he  was  retained  for  political,  not  military, 
reasons. 

These  July  days  were  the  days  in  which  Lincoln  grew 
thin  and  haggard,  Seward  was  sent  upon  a  circuit  of  the 
North  to  arouse  public  men  in  support  of  the  new  enlist- 
ment programme,  and  Lowell  wrote,  "I  don't  see  how 
we  are  to  be  saved  but  by  a  miracle."  Who  should  suc- 
ceed McClellan?  Chase  and  Welles  believed  that  the 
best  general  in  view  for  the  eastern  command  was  John 
Pope,  whose  victory  at  Island  No.  lo  had  given  him 
national  fame;  and  Bryant  and  Godwin,  who  had  had 
some  personal  contact  with  Pope,  agreed.  He  was  called 
east  and  given  the  Army  of  Virginia.  The  chief  com- 
mand, however,  went  to  Halleck,  whom  the  Evening  Post 
distrusted  as  much  as  Welles  did,  and  had  already  (July 
23)  described  as  slower  and  less  enterprising  than 
McClellan. 

To  Halleck  the  Evening  Post  said  that  his  motto  must 
be  that  of  the  Athenian  orator,  action — action — action. 
The  country  wanted  a  Marshal  Vorwarts;  should  its 
historians  have  none  to  record  but  General  Trenches, 
General  Strategy,  or  General  Let-Escape?  A  few  days 
later  (Aug.  19)  it  pubHshed  an  editorial  headed  "On- 
ward! Onward!"  "The  one  essential  element  in  our 
military  movements  now  is  celerity,"  it  urged.  "Prompt- 
ness in  filling  up  the  ranks  already  thinned  by  the  war, 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  291 

promptness  In  organizing  and  sending  forward  new  regi- 
ments, promptness  In  moving  on  the  enemy."  Bryant 
had  written  Lincoln  protesting  against  the  sluggishness 
of  military  operations,  and  under  pressure  from  other 
radicals,  early  in  August  the  editor  visited  Washington 
to  remonstrate.  Mayor  Opdyke,  President  Charles  King 
of  Columbia,  and  many  other  Influential  New  Yorkers 
went  at  about  the  same  time  for  the  same  purpose.  Bry- 
ant tells  us  that  he  had  a  long  talk  with  Lincoln,  "in 
which  I  expressed  myself  plainly  and  without  reserve, 
though  courteously.  He  bore  It  well,  and  I  must  say  that 
I  left  him  with  a  perfect  conviction  of  the  excellence  of 
his  intentions  and  the  singleness  of  his  purposes,  though 
with  sorrow  for  his  indecision."  A  movement  immedi- 
ately began  in  New  York  to  organize  the  radicals  under 
a  local  committee. 

In  their  editorials  on  military  policy  Bryant,  Parke 
Godwin,  and  Charles  Nordhoff  were  guided  by  officers 
who  wrote  from  the  field  or  whom  they  met  in  the  city; 
and  their  comments  were  remarkably  sound.  At  this 
moment,  for  example,  the  Evening  Post  sensibly  ridiculed 
the  talk  of  a  rebel  army  200,000  strong.  It  repeatedly 
expressed  a  conviction  that  never,  neither  at  Manassas, 
Yorktown,  or  Richmond,  had  the  enemy  been  superior. 
"There  is  excellent  reason  to  believe  that  the  rebels 
never  had  more  than  40,000  men  at  Manassas;  It  is 
a  notorious  fact  that  when  McClellan  arrived  on  the 
Peninsula,  there  were  not  10,000  men  at  Yorktown.  At 
Fair  Oaks  Sumner's  corps  and  Casey's  division  repulsed 
the  whole  rebel  army.  ...  A  close  examination  of  the 
battles  before  Richmond  proves  that  the  rebels  never 
fought  more  than  15,000  to  25,000  men  there  on  any  one 
day."  McClellan,  it  thought,  had  been  frightened  by 
Idle  fears.  But  when  Pope  failed  more  ignominiously 
than  McClellan,  and  was  soundly  drubbed  at  the  second 
battle  of  Bull  Run  (Aug.  30,  1862),  the  Evening  Post 
did  not  confine  itself  to  military  topics.  It  fell  again 
into  its  unjustifiable  censure  of  Lincoln.  The  President 
was  honest,  devoted,  and  determined — 


292  THE  EVENING  POST 

and  yet  the  effect  of  his  management  has  been  such  that,  with 
all  his  personal  popularity,  in  spite  of  the  general  confidence  in  his 
good  intentions,  and  in  spite  of  the  ability  and  energy  of  several 
of  his  advisers,  a  large  part  of  the  nation  is  utterly  discouraged 
and  despondent.  Many  intelligent  and  even  vrise  persons,  indeed, 
do  not  scruple  to  express  their  suspicions  that  treachery  lurks  in 
the  highest  quarters,  and  that  either  in  the  army  or  in  the  Cabinet 
purposes  are  entertained  which  are  equivalent  to  treason. 

All  this  has  grown  out  of  the  weakness  and  vacillation  of  the 
Administration,  which  itself  has  grown  out  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  own 
want  of  decision  and  purpose.  We  pretend  to  no  state  secrets, 
but  we  have  been  told,  upon  what  we  deem  good  authority,  that 
no  such  thing  as  a  continued,  unitary,  deliberate  Administration 
exists;  that  the  President's  brave  willingness  to  take  all  responsi- 
bility has  quite  neutralized  the  idea  of  a  conjoint  responsibility; 
and  that  orders  of  the  highest  importance  are  issued  and  move- 
ments commanded,  which  Cabinet  officers  learn  of  as  other  people 
do,  or,  what  is  worse,  which  the  Cabinet  officers  disapprove  and 
protest  against.  Each  Cabinet  officer,  again,  controls  his  own  de- 
partment pretty  much  as  he  pleases,  without  consultation  with  the 
President  or  with  his  coadjutors.      (Sept.    15,   1862.) 

At  this  juncture  the  Times  and  World  were  vehemently 
demanding  a  drastic  change  of  Cabinet  officers;  and  in 
Washington  Congressional  sentiment  was  shaping  Itself 
toward  the  crisis  of  December,  when  a  Senatorial  caucus 
demanded  the  resignation  of  the  conservative  Seward. 
The  Herald,  panic-stricken,  was  telling  McClellan  that 
he  was  "master  of  the  situation" — that  Is,  he  might  be 
dictator;  and  calling  upon  him  "to  Insist  upon  the  modifi- 
cation and  reconstruction  of  the  Cabinet."  It  was  not 
unnatural  for  Bryant  to  give  way  to  his  old  fear  that  the 
Administration  would  "fight  battles  to  produce  a  com- 
promise Instead  of  a  victory." 

As  befitted  such  a  warlike  journal,  the  Evening  Post 
had  Its  own  strategic  plan,  which  It  first  outlined  Oct. 
5,  1 86 1,  and  thenceforth  expounded  every  few  weeks 
until  the  closing  campaigns.  Briefly,  it  held  that  there 
was  no  Important  object  In  the  capture  of  Richmond; 
that  the  indispensable  aim  was  to  destroy  the  Confederate 
armies,  not  to  take  cities.     The  Southern  capital  could 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  293 

be  easily  removed  to  Knoxvllle,  Petersburg,  or  Mont- 
gomery. Except  In  so  far  as  was  Involved  In  opening  the 
Mississippi  and  applying  the  blockade,  It  opposed  the 
"anaconda  plan"  of  Scott  and  McClellan,  the  plan  of 
attacking  with  a  half  dozen  armies  from  a  half  dozen 
sides.  The  rebels.  It  pointed  out,  had  the  advantage  of 
Inside  lines  and  could  rapidly  shift  their  forces  to  defeat 
one  Federal  onslaught  after  another.  The  true  strategy 
was  for  the  Union  itself  to  seize  the  Inside  lines.  This 
could  be  done  by  concentrating  its  heaviest  forces  in 
those  great  Appalachian  valleys  which  ran  south  through 
Virginia  and  Tennessee  Into  the  heart  of  the  Confederacy. 
The  population  was  In  large  part  friendly;  the  Ohio 
River  offered  a  base  of  supplies;  the  flanks  could  be  se- 
cured by  guarding  the  passes  or  gaps;  and  as  the  Union 
armies  moved  southward  in  the  Tennessee  and  Shenan- 
doah Valleys,  they  could  force  the  evacuation  of  the  bor- 
der States.  From  the  valleys  they  could  fall  at  will  upon 
Virginia,  upon  North  Carolina,  upon  Georgia,  upon  Mis- 
sissippi, and  could  rend  the  Confederacy  in  twain. 

But  the  good  and  bad  sides  of  the  Evening  Post's 
radicalism  were  best  exhibited  In  Its  eagerness  for  eman- 
cipation. It  was  a  noble  object  for  which  to  contend,  yet 
no  one  doubts  that  Lincoln  was  right  In  his  long  hesita- 
tion, and  In  declaring  to  Greeley  so  late  as  the  summer  of 
1862  that  his  paramount  object  was  to  save  the  Union, 
and  not  either  to  save  or  destroy  slavery. 

Even  in  the  month  of  Bull  Run  the  Evening  Post, 
while  rebuking  a  New  England  minister  who  asked  for  a 
national  declaration  in  favor  of  emancipation,  believed 
that  the  conflict,  "though  not  a  war  directly  aimed  at  the 
release  of  the  slave,  must  Indirectly  work  out  the  result 
In  many  ways."  When  Fremont  Issued  his  hasty  proc- 
lamation of  September,  1861,  liberating  all  slaves  in 
Missouri,  which  Lincoln  sensibly  revoked,  the  Post  called 
it  "the  most  popular  act  of  the  war,"  and  was  much  of- 
fended by  the  President.  By  October  it  was  dropping  the 
uncertainty  of  tone  in  which  it  had  spgken  of  the  sub- 
ject.    Early  that  month  It  said  that  if  It  became  neces- 


294  THE  EVENING  POST 

sary  to  extinguish  slavery  In  order  to  put  down  the  rebel- 
lion, it  must  be  given  no  mercy;  a  few  days  later  it  de- 
manded the  release  of  all  captured  slaves  and  their 
enlistment  as  cooks,  trench-diggers,  and  other  auxiliaries ; 
while  on  Sept.  25  It  virtually  called  for  emancipation. 
The  paper  believed  that  It  "would  change  the  whole 
aspect  of  the  war,  bring  to  our  side  a  host  of  new  aUIes, 
call  off  the  attention  of  the  rebels  from  their  present  plan, 
and  hasten  the  period  of  their  subjugation."  Bryant 
wrote  just  before  Thanksgiving  upon  the  probable  great 
result  of  the  war;  and  "that  the  extinction  of  slavery 
will  form  a  part  of  it,"  he  declared,  "we  have  not  the 
shadow  of  a  doubt." 

During  the  first  half  of  1862  a  considerable  part  of 
the  Post's  criticism  of  Lincoln  sprang  from  Its  impatience 
over  his  reluctance  to  free  the  slaves.  This  was  the 
attitude  of  Sumner,  of  Thaddeus  Stevens,  of  Carl  Schurz, 
of  Greeley  in  the  Tribune  and  nearly  all  the  Tribune's 
great  constituency;  most  of  Bryant's  friends  took  It,  and 
many,  as  Lydia  Maria  Child,  wrote  requesting  editorial 
pleas  for  emancipation.  It  is  an  interesting  coincidence, 
that  on  the  very  day,  July  22,  1862,  that  Lincoln  read 
his  emancipation  proclamation  to  the  Cabinet,  and  upon 
Seward's  suggestion  put  it  aside,  the  Evening  Post's  lead- 
ing editorial  was  an  impassioned  plea  for  such  a  docu- 
ment. Lincoln  was  only  waiting  for  a  victory,  that  his 
proclamation  might  seem  to  be  supported  by  a  military 
success.  Possibly  Bryant  learned  this  from  his  friend 
Chase.  At  any  rate,  although  the  Evening  Post  was  bit- 
terly grieved  by  McClellan's  failure  to  win  a  decisive 
victory  at  Antletam  In  September,  and  wrote  angrily  that 
such  drawn  battles  were  "not  war  but  murder;  butchery 
which  fills  all  right-minded  men  with  horror,"  it  knew 
that  emancipation  might  follow  Lee's  retreat  from  Mary- 
land soil.  Just  after  the  battle  Bryant  wrote  an  edi- 
torial (Sept.  17)  called,  "While  the  Iron  is  Hot."  There 
are  crucial  junctures,  he  said,  when  great  blows  must  be 
struck  at  great  evils.  Such  a  juncture  had  arrived;  "a 
proclamation  of  freedom  by  martial  law  would  be  hailed, 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  295 

we  believe,  by  an  almost  universal  shout  of  joy  In  all  the 
loyal  States,  as  the  death  knell  of  the  rebellion."  Just 
a  week  later  the  Evening  Post  was  rejoicing  over  the 
President's  announcement  of  his  forthcoming  proclama- 
tion: 

It  puts  us  right  before  Europe;  it  brings  us  back  to  our  tradi- 
tions; it  animates  our  soldiers  with  the  same  spirit  which  led  our 
forefathers  to  victory  under  Washington;  they  are  fighting  to- 
day, as  the  Revolutionary  patriots  fought,  in  the  interests  of  the 
human  race,  for  human  rights.  .  .  . 

There  was  a  lesson  for  all  radicals  In  the  resentment 
which,  at  even  that  late  date,  many  Northern  newspapers 
showed  over  the  President's  act.  The  Journal  of  Com- 
merce had  ''only  anticipations  of  evil  from  It,"  and  be- 
lieved that  an  Immense  majority  of  Northerners  would 
view  it  with  profound  regret.  The  Herald  predicted  that 
it  would  ruin  the  white  laborers  of  the  West  by  bringing 
the  negroes  north  to  compete  with  them.  The  World 
held  that  It  was  nugatory — the  South  would  have  to  be 
whipped  before  It  could  be  given  any  effect.  The  Courrier 
des  Etats  Unis  had  deplored  many  errors  since  the  re- 
public "began  rolling  down  the  slope  which  promises  to 
land  It  In  the  abyss,"  but  It  thought  this  blunder  the  most 
wanton  and  complete.  What  would  such  papers  and  the 
great  body  of  citizens  they  represented  have  said  six 
months  earlier? 

Another  and  highly  praiseworthy  evidence  of  the  "radi- 
calism" of  the  Evening  Post  was  Its  eagerness  for  a  far- 
reaching  system  of  taxation,  and  for  having  the  financial 
conduct  of  the  war  kept  as  strictly  as  possible  upon  a 
sound-money  basis.  Having  been  active  In  obtaining 
Chase's  appointment  to  the  Treasury,  Bryant  felt  a  spe- 
cial solicitude  for  that  department.  During  the  latter 
half  of  1 86 1  he  repeatedly  urged  Congress  to  tax  to  the 
limit.  He  believed  that  the  government  should  be  able 
to  pay  for  the  war  by  heavy  taxes,  supplemented  by  the 
sale  of  long-term  bonds,  and  only  as  a  final  resource 
should  Issue  Treasury  notes  payable  on  demand.    It  was 


296  THE  EVENING  POST 

a  disappointment  to  the  paper  that  Chase  took  no  early 
steps  for  the  development  of  an  appropriate  tax  system. 
A  remarkable  editorial  of  Feb.  i,  1862,  pictured  the 
wealth  of  the  nation :  the  universal  possession  of  property, 
the  high  per  capita  prosperity,  the  bursting  granaries, 
the  rich  output  of  precious  metals.  It  recalled  the  fact 
that  three  times  the  national  debt  contracted  in  great 
wars  had  been  wiped  out,  while  in  the  thirties  the  treasury 
overflowed  until  men  racked  their  brains  with  plans  for 
spending  the  superfluity.  Never  was  a  nation  more  cheer- 
fully inclined  to  accept  high  taxes;  "the  general  feeling 
is  one  of  impatience  that  Congress  is  so  slow  in  perform- 
ing this  necessary  duty." 

As  early  as  Jan.  15  the  Evening  Post  had  uttered  Its 
first  warning  against  a  reliance  upon  paper  money.  Nat- 
urally, the  passage  of  the  greenback  legislation  of  Feb. 
25,  1862,  for  the  issue  of  $150,000,000  In  legal-tender 
notes,  dismayed  It.  It  believed  the  law  grossly  unconsti- 
tutional, and  was  certain  that  it  would  be  disastrous  in 
effect.  Secretary  Chase  wrote  to  Bryant,  on  Feb.  4, 
arguing  for  the  bill,  but  in  vain.  "Your  feelings  of  re- 
pugnance to  the  legal-tender  clause  can  hardly  be  greater 
than  my  own,"  said  Chase;  "but  I  am  convinced  that,  as 
a  temporary  measure,  It  Is  Indispensably  necessary."  He 
thought  that  a  minority  of  the  people  would  not  sustain 
the  notes  unless  they  were  made  a  tender  for  debt,  and 
that  this  minority  could  control  the  majority  to  all  prac- 
tical intents.  But  the  Evening  Post,  like  all  the  other 
New  York  journals  save  two,  opposed  the  bill  to  the  last. 
Bryant  did  not  believe  that  the  measure  could  be  tempo- 
rary, as  Chase  put  it.  In  an  editorial  called  "A  Deluge 
at  Hand,"  he  compared  the  law  to  the  first  breach  made 
in  one  of  the  Holland  dikes : 

In  all  the  examples  which  the  world  has  seen,  the  evil  of  an 
irredeemable  paper  currency  runs  its  course  as  certainly  as  the 
smallpox  or  any  other  disease.  The  first  effects  are  of  such  a 
nature  that  the  remedy  is  never  applied ;  there  is  no  disposition  to 
apply  it.     The  inflation  of  the  currency  pleases  a  large  class  of 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  297 

persons  by  a  rise  of  prices  and  an  extraordinary  activity  in  busi- 
ness. People  buy  to  sell  at  higher  prices;  property  passes  rapidly 
from  hand  to  hand ;  fortunes  are  made ;  the  community  is  delirious 
with  speculation.  At  such  a  time  suppose  Mr.  Chase  to  step  in 
and  say:  "My  friends,  this  fun  has  been  going  on  long  enough; 
you  must  be  tired  by  this  time  of  speculation.  Let  us  repeal  the 
legal-tender  clause  in  the  Treasury-note  bill  and  return  to  specie 
payments."    What  sort  of  reception  would  this  proposal  meet  ? 

His  prophecy  was  fulfilled.  Successive  Issues  of  legal- 
tender  notes  followed,  until  the  total  reached  $450,000,- 
000;  prices  soared,  and  the  cost  of  the  war  was  im- 
mensely enhanced;  and  at  one  time  $39  in  gold  would  buy 
$100  in  currency.  The  Evening!  Post,  it  may  be  added, 
was  the  first  newspaper  to  suggest  the  issue  of  interest- 
bearing  banknotes  as  an  expedient  for  the  gradual  con- 
traction of  the  currency,  a  measure  Congress  adopted 
in  March,  1863. 

Meanwhile,  the  Northern  armies  failed  to  make  prog- 
ress. When  in  December,  1862,  the  criminally  incom- 
petent Burnside  attacked  Lee's  entrenched  army  at 
Fredericksburg,  and  was  flung  back  with  the  loss  of 
nearly  13,000  men,  an  outburst  of  anger  came  from  the 
whole  New  York  press.  "The  Late  Massacre"  was  the 
heading  the  Evening  Post  gave  its  editorial  of  Dec.  18, 
in  which,  three  days  after  Burnside  fell  back,  it  could  not 
understand  why  he  was  not  already  removed.  "How 
long  is  such  intolerable  and  wicked  blundering  to  con- 
tinue ?  What  does  the  President  wait  for  ?  We  hear  that 
a  great,  a  horrible  crime  has  been  committed;  we  do  not 
hear  that  those  guilty  of  it  are  under  arrest;  we  do  not 
hear  even  that  they  are  to  be  removed  from  the  places  of 
trust  which  they  have  shown  themselves  so  incapable 
to  fill."  The  Democratic  press,  led  by  the  Herald,  de- 
manded the  reinstatement  of  McClellan,  while  the  radical 
press  wanted  an  entirely  new  general.  Once  more,  like 
the  Tribune,  Herald,  and  World,  the  Evening  Post 
blamed  Lincoln  for  his  generals'  mistakes.  "The  Presi- 
dent has  required  too  little  from  his  agents;  his  good 
nature  has  led  him  to  be  less  strict  toward  them  than 


298  THE  EVENING  POST 

he  ought  to  be,  while  at  the  same  time  his  confidence  in 
himself  and  his  advisers  has  led  him,  unfortunately,  to 
deny  himself  that  general  counsel  of  the  nation  by  which 
he  might  have  benefited  had  he  kept  up  confidential  rela- 
tions between  himself  and  the  people."  Yet  it  had  praised 
the  choice  of  Burnside,  calling  him  an  energetic,  calm, 
and  judicious  leader,  who  had  the  prestige  of  success  in 
his  favor. 

As  the  spring  campaign  of  1863  opened,  the  Post  re- 
flected the  renewed  hopefulness  of  the  North.  It  was  not 
pleased  by  the  selection  of  Hooker  to  be  the  new  com- 
mander, but  it  was  encouraged  by  his  rapid  reorganization 
of  the  army  and  restoration  of  fighting  discipline.  The 
new  advance  had  the  old  result — disaster.  On  May  7, 
lamenting  Hooker's  ignominious  defeat  at  Chancellors- 
ville,  the  Evening  Post  condemned  his  strategy  as  incom- 
prehensible. It  was  quite  right  in  its  general  verdict, 
and  in  a  number  of  specific  criticisms,  as  when  it  said  that 
the  disposition  of  the  forces  under  Sedgwick  had  been 
insane.  But  we  can  hardly  say  as  much  of  its  censure 
of  Hooker  and  the  Administration  for  an  alleged  failure 
to  use  the  needed  reserves.  There  were  60,000  men 
among  the  Washington  defenses,  it  declared,  who  might 
have  been  replaced  by  militia  and  thrown  into  the  battle. 
As  a  matter  of  fact.  Hooker  had  failed  to  employ  35,000 
fresh  troops  right  at  hand;  his  army  was  large  enough, 
and  much  too  large  for  his  capacity  to  handle  it.  It  fell 
back  across  the  Rappahannock,  and  the  stage  was  set 
for  Lee's  descent  upon  Pennsylvania. 

Rhodes  states  that  "by  the  rniddle  of  June  (1863)  the 
movements  of  Lee  in  Virginia  warned  the  North  of  the 
approaching  invasion"  that  culminated  at  Gettysburg. 
But  the  readers  of  the  Evening  Post  were  warned  of  it  by 
a  column  editorial  on  May  21,  two  weeks  before  Lee  took 
his  first  preliminary  steps.  That  such  a  prophecy  could 
be  made  shows  how  conversant  with  the  military  situa- 
tion the  great  New  York  journals  were  kept  by  their 
war  correspondents,  their  files  of  Southern  newspapers, 
and  their  high  official  advisers.     Bryant  wrote  that  he 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  299 

believed  Jefferson  Davis  was  preparing  his  last  desperate 
stroke,  In  the  knowledge  that  Grant  might  soon  wrest 
the  whole  Mississippi  from  him,  that  there  would  be 
more  Union  cavalry  raids  like  Stoneman's  and  Grierson's, 
and  that  even  If  the  Confederacy  beat  off  another  attack 
like  Hooker's,  It  would  prove  a  Pyrrhic  victory: 

There  are  unmistakable  indications  that  Davis  is  quietly  with- 
drawing troops  from  the  outlying  camps  along'  the  seacoasts  to 
reinforce  Lee,  which  movement  will  be  continued,  we  think,  until 
that  general  has  a  command  of  150,000  to  200,000  men.  As  soon 
as  it  is  ready  Lee  will  move,  we  conjecture,  not  in  the  direction 
of  Washington,  but  of  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  with  a  view  to 
crossing  the  Potomac  somewhere  between  Martinsburg  and  Cum- 
berland. It  will  be  easy  for  him  ...  to  defend  his  flanks  .  .  . 
and  to  maintain  also  uninterrupted  communications  with  Staunton 
and  the  Central  Virginia  railway.  The  valley  itself  is  filled  with 
rapidly  ripening  harvests,  and  once  upon  the  river  supplies  may 
be  got  from  Pennsylvania. 

The  editorial  proposed  either  the  occupation  of  the 
Shenandoah  in  force,  or  a  new  attack  on  Lee,  and  advised 
the  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  authorities  to  fortify 
their  towns  and  raise  fresh  bodies  of  troops. 

When  the  Invasion  actually  began,  parts  of  the  North 
were  frightened,  but  the  Evening  Post  was  almost  glee- 
ful. On  June  17,  when  news  came  that  the  first  Con- 
federates were  across  the  Potomac,  it  expressed  the  hope 
that  Lee  would  push  on  so  that  he  might  be  cut  off  and 
destroyed.  Ten  days  later,  when  the  rebels  had  reached 
Carlisle,  Pa.,  It  was  jubilant:  "It  is  time  for  the  nation 
to  rise;  the  great  occasion  has  come,  and  now.  If  we  had 
prepared  ourselves  for  It,  and  had  collected  and  drilled 
reserve  forces,  we  might  end  the  rebellion  in  a  month.'* 
On  June  29,  two  days  before  the  battle  began,  it  con- 
gratulated Meade  on  an  unsurpassed  military  opportu- 
nity, and  urged  three  considerations  upon  him.  He  should 
Insist  that  Washington  help  and  not  embarrass  him,  he 
should  ask  for  all  the  reserves  available,  "and  then,  hav- 
ing given  battle  in  due  time,  let  him  avoid  the  mistake 
of  McClellan  at  Antietam,  by  pursuing  the  enemy  until 


300  THE  EVENING  POST 

he   Is   completely   overthrown."      That   the   chance    for 
pursuit  would  come  the  Post  never  doubted. 

The  close  of  the  three  days'  struggle  at  Gettysburg  left 
Bryant  confident  that  the  turning  point  of  the  war  had 
been  passed.  "There  is  every  reason  to  hope  that  the 
rebel  army  of  Virginia  will  never  recross  the  Potomac 
as  an  army,"  he  said  on  July  6;  but  whether  Lee 
crossed  it  or  not,  "the  rebellion  has  received  a  staggering 
blow,  from  which  it  would  scarcely  seem  possible  for 
it  to  recover."  The  next  day  he  insisted  that  the  rebels 
be  followed  at  once  and  destroyed,  but  in  his  exultation 
he  accepted  philosophically  Meade's  failure  to  advance. 

II 

At  this  moment  of  rejoicing  over  Gettysburg  and  Vicks- 
burg  the  city  was  horrified  and  humiliated  by  the  Draft 
Riots,  a  sharp  reminder  that  the  home  front  was  only 
less  important  than  the  battle  front.  Of  this  fact  the 
Evening  Post  had  never  lost  sight.  Bryant's  editorials 
always  held  in  view  the  necessity  of  sustaining  the  spirits 
of  the  North.  For  every  "radical"  utterance  criticizing 
the  Administration's  faults  there  were  ten  exhorting  the 
people  to  support  its  central  aims.  In  the  first  months 
of  the  war  he  published  two  martial  lyrics,  one  addressed 
to  European  enemies  who  hoped  for  the  ruin  of  the  re- 
public, and  one  a  plea  for  enlistment: 

Few,  few  were  they  whose  swords  of  old 
Won  the  fair  land  in  which  we  dwell ; 
But  we  are  many,  we  who  hold 
The  grim  resolve  to  guard  it  well. 
Strike,  for  that  broad  and  goodly  land, 
Blow  after  blow,  till  men  shall  see 
That  Might  and  Right  move  hand  in  hand, 
And  glorious  must  their  triumph  be ! 

It  was  natural  for  New  York  city  to  have  a  lusty  anti- 
war press  when  the  struggle  for  the  Union  began.  It  had 
been  Democratic  since  Jackson's  time,  and  remained 
Democratic  during  the  Civil  War.    Its  social  connections 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  301 

with  the  South  had  always  been  close,  while  till  i860  its 
merchants  and  bankers  had  stronger  business  ties  with  the 
South  than  with  the  West.  After  the  war  began  many 
Southern  sympathizers,  refugees  from  the  border  States, 
settled  in  the  city. 

But  the  capture  of  Fort  Sumter  turned  all  that  indif- 
ference to  the  secession  movement  which  William  H. 
Russell  had  noted  a  few  weeks  earlier  into  a  passionate 
enthusiasm  of  the  majority  for  the  Federal  cause.  At 
3  p.  m.  on  April  18,  the  day  the  first  troops  passed 
through  New  York  southward,  an  excited  crowd  gath- 
ered before  the  Express  office  and  demanded  a  display 
of  the  American  flag.  It  surged  up  Park  Row  and  made 
the  same  demand  of  the  Day  Book  and  Daily  News  (the 
latter  Fernando  Wood's  organ),  and  thence  poured  down 
Nassau  Street  and  Broadway  to  the  Journal  of  Commerce 
building,  which  also  hurried  out  a  flag.  Already  the 
Herald  had  decorated  its  windows  with  bunting.  The 
Monday  after  Sumter,  Bennett  had  braved  popular  feel- 
ing with  another  demand  for  peace,  but  now  he  hurried 
to  Washington,  pledged  his  support  of  the  Union  to 
President  Lincoln,  and  saw  that  beginning  with  the  Her- 
ald for  April  17,  that  policy  was  adopted. 

Unfortunately,  the  tone  of  the  pro-slavery  press  con- 
tinued so  objectionable  that  on  Aug.  22,  1861,  the  post- 
oflice  forbade  mail  transportation  to  the  Journal  of  Com- 
merce, Day  Book,  Daily  News,  Freeman's  Journal,  and 
Brooklyn  Eagle,  all  ^wt  of  which  had  been  presented  by 
a  Federal  Grand  Jury.  The  Daily  News  was  suppressed 
in  New  Jersey  by  the  Federal  Marshal.  Gerard  Hal- 
lock  of  the  Journal  of  Commerce,  complaining  of  threats 
of  violence  and  an  organized  movement  to  cut  off  his  sub- 
scribers and  advertising,  sold  his  interest  to  David  Stone 
and  Wm.  C.  Prime,  and  the  paper  became  less  offensive. 
The  Day  Book  permanently  and  the  Daily  News  tempo- 
rarily ceased  publication.  The  foreign-language  press 
also  failed  to  show  due  patriotism,  many  French  citizens 
in  August  signing  a  petition  for  the  suppression  of  the 
Courrier  des  Etats  Unis  as  disloyal,  and  the  Westchester 


302  THE  EVENING  POST 

grand  jury  presenting  the  Staats-Zeitung  and  National- 
Zeitiing  as  disseminators  of  treason.  The  Worlds  chang- 
ing hands,  became  under  the  able  Manton  Marble,  who 
had  recently  been  an  employee  of  the  Post,  a  leader  of  the 
''copperhead"  press. 

There  is  no  need  to  quote  from  the  World,  Daily  News, 
and  Journal  of  Commerce  to  show  how,  boldly  when  they 
dared,  covertly  when  they  did  not,  they  continued  to  at- 
tack the  Union  cause.  Their  methods  were  defined  by 
the  Evening  Post  of  May  20,  1863,  in  a  "Recipe  for  a 
Democratic  Paper,"  which  may  be  briefly  summarized: 

(i)  Magnify  all  rebel  successes  and  minimize  all  Federal  vic- 
tories; if  the  South  loses  18,000  men  say  8,000  men,  and  if  the 
North  loses  1 1,000  say  21,000. 

(2)  Calumniate  all  energetic  generals  like  Sherman,  Grant, 
and  Rosecrans;  call  worthless  leaders  like  Halleck  and  Pope  the 
master  generals  of  the  age. 

(3)  Whenever  the  Union  suffers  a  reverse,  declare  that  the 
nation  is  weary  of  this  slow  war ;  and  ask  how  long  this  fratricidal 
conflict  will  be  allowed  to  continue. 

(4)  Expatiate  upon  the  bankruptcies,  high  prices,  stock  jobbers, 
gouging  profiteers  and  "shoddy  men." 

(5)  Abuse  Lincoln  and  the  Cabinet  in  two  ways:  say  they  are 
weak,  timid,  vacillating,  and  incompetent;  and  that  they  are 
tyrannous,  harsh,  and  despotic. 

(6)  Protest  vehemently  against  "nigger"  brigadiers,  and  the 
atrocity  of  arming  the  slaves  against  their  masters. 

(7)  Don't  advise  open  resistance  to  the  draft.  But  clamor 
against  it  in  detail;  suggest  doubts  of  its  constitutionality;  de- 
nounce the  $300  clause;  say  that  it  makes  an  odious  distinction 
between  rich  and  poor ;  and  refer  learnedly  to  the  military  autoc- 
racies of  France  and  Prussia. 

The  copperhead  politicians  were  as  active  as  the  cop- 
perhead press.  At  their  head  was  Mayor  Wood,  who 
ran  for  reelection  in  the  fall  of  1861  and  was  opposed  by 
Bryant's  friend  George  Opdyke.  Called  a  blackguard  by 
the  Tribune  and  a  miscreant  by  the  Evening  Post,  Wood 
based  his  campaign  upon  denunciation  of  the  abolitionists 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  303 

and  appeals  to  racial  prejudice.  In  a  speech  reported  by 
the  Post  of  Nov.  29  he  declared  that  Lincoln  had  brought 
the  nation  to  the  verge  of  ruin,  that  the  negro-philes 
would  prosecute  the  war  as  long  as  they  could  share  the 
money  spent  upon  it,  and  that  "they  will  get  Irishmen 
and  Germans  to  fill  up  the  regiments  under  the  idea  that 
they  will  themselves  remain  at  home  to  divide  the  plun- 
der." Just  before  election  day  the  Post  gave  part  of  its 
editorial  page  to  the  following  bit  of  drama : 

FERNANDO  IN  A  PORTER  HOUSE 

AN  OCCURRENCE  UP-TOWN  ,*  NOT  A  FANCY  SKETCH 

(Scene:  A  porter  house  in  the  2 2d  ward.  Proprietor  behind 
the  counter.  Behind  him  a  row  of  bottles,  etc.  Enter  Fernando 
and  a  voter.) 

Fernando:  Good  morning,  my  dear  friend.  Please  let  me 
and  my  friend  have  something  to  drink.  (Glasses  are  set  before 
them  and  a  decanter.  They  help  themselves.  Fernando  throws 
a  double  eagle  upon  the  counter,  waving  away  the  offer  to  give 
back  change.)     You  will  support  me,  I  suppose? 

Proprietor  (quietly  depositing  the  money  in  the  till):  "Yes,  I 
shall  support  you  for  the  State  prison.  You  have  been  up  for  a 
place  there,  I  believe. 

Fernando  (going  out  and  coming  back):  By  the  way,  you  did 
not  mean  what  you  said  just  now? 

Proprietor:  Yes,  I  did  mean  just  that.  You  deserve  State 
prison  and  would  have  gone  there  three  years  ago  if  you  had  not 
cheated  the  law. 

Fernando:  Will  you  give  me  my  change? 

Proprietor:  No,  I  will  not.  I  want  it  to  show  my  neighbors 
how  you  tried  to  influence  my  vote. 

(Exit  Fernando,  crestfallen) 

Opdyke,  with  the  first  war  enthusiasm  behind  him, 
won  the  Mayoralty  election  from  the  egregious  Wood. 
But  the  strength  of  the  Democrats,  which  in  large  degree 
meant  the  strength  of  the  anti-war  party,  was  thereafter 
triumphant  in  every  election  till  Grant  took  Richmond. 
The  State  and  Congressional  campaign  of  1862,  coming 
during  the  dark  period  after  the  Peninsular  campaign 
and  the  drawn  battle  of  Antietam,  aroused  the  Evening 


304  THE  EVENING  POST 

Post,  Times  and  Tribune  to  great  exertions.  Horatio 
Seymour,  the  "submissionist"  candidate,  contested  the 
Governorship  with  Gen.  James  Wadsworth.  His 
speeches,  wrote  Bryant,  have  a  direct  tendency  to  dis- 
courage our  loyal  troops  and  sustain  the  hopes  of  the 
South.  The  Post  denied  his  echo  of  the  World^s  and 
Herald* s  statements  that  the  Administration  was  a  fail- 
ure. "It  has  been  a  grand  and  brilliant  success.  History 
will  so  account  it."  Lincoln,  predicted  the  Post,  need 
only  give  rein  to  the  Northern  determination,  and  his 
name  "will  stand  on  the  future  annals  of  his  country 
illustrated  by  a  renown  as  pure  and  undying  as  that  of 
George  Washington."  But  Seymour  easily  won,  obtain- 
ing 54,2^3  votes  in  New  York  city  against  22,523  given 
Wadsworth;  and  the  Democrats  swept  the  Congressional 
districts,  including  one  in  which  they  had  nominated  Fer- 
nando Wood. 

One  factor  in  this  result,  said  the  Evening  Post,  was 
the  alarm  many  had  taken  at  the  threat  of  the  draft. 
The  World  played  upon  this  alarm,  and  both  it  and  the 
Herald  attacked  the  emancipation  proclamation  as  a 
change  in  the  objects  of  the  war;  to  which  Bryant  re- 
plied that  the  Revolution  had  begun  to  assert  the  rights 
of  the  Colonies  within  the  British  Empire,  and  had 
shortly  become  a  war  to  take  them  out  of  it.  Bryant 
in  the  spring  of  1863  characterized  the  Express  as  an 
organ  "which  has  called  repeatedly  upon  the  mob  to  oust 
the  regular  government  at  Washington,  and  upon  the 
army  to  proclaim  McClellan  its  chief  at  all  hazards"; 
while  the  Journal  of  Commerce,  he  said,  "has  always  de- 
nounced the  war,  and  even  now  argues  .  .  .  that  the 
allegiance  of  the  citizens  is  due  to  the  State,  and  not  to 
the  Federal  Government."  Some  of  the  most  promi- 
nent men  of  the  city — Tilden,  James  Brooks,  S.  F.  B. 
Morse,  August  Belmont,  David  E.  Wheeler,  and  others 
— met  at  Delmonico's  on  Feb.  6,  1863,  and  formed  a  plan 
for  circulating  copperhead  doctrines,  or,  as  they  put  it, 
for  "the  diffusion  of  knowledge";  whence  the  Post  nick- 
named them  "diffusionists." 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  305 

When  the  Draft  Act  was  enforced  throughout  the 
North  just  after  Gettysburg,  disorders  occurred  in  widely 
scattered  centers;  and  it  was  inevitable  that  they  should 
be  gravest  in  New  York.  Not  merely  did  the  city  con- 
tain many  half  disloyal  Americans  of  native  birth.  It 
was  full  of  a  class  of  Irishmen  who  had  proved  especially 
responsive  to  the  demagogues  opposing  the  war.  Clashes 
between  the  Irish  and  negroes  had  been  common  for  a 
decade.  In  August,  1862,  a  mob  in  Brooklyn  attacked 
a  factory  in  which  blacks  were  working,  and  tried  to  set 
It  afire  with  the  negroes  inside.  Similar  riots,  the  Post 
remarked,  had  disgraced  several  Western  cities.  "In 
every  case  Irish  laborers  have  been  incited  to  take  part 
in  these  lawless  attempts;  and  the  cunning  ringleaders 
and  originators  of  these  mutinies,  who  are  not  Irishmen, 
have  thus  sought  to  kill  two  birds  with  one  stone — to  ex- 
cite a  strong  popular  prejudice  against  the  Irish,  while 
they  used  them  to  wreak  their  spite  against  the  blacks." 

The  copperhead  press  in  the  early  July  days  preceding 
the  first  drawing  of  draft  numbers  was  filled  with  abuse 
of  conscription.  The  Herald,  to  be  sure,  which  professed 
neutrality  between  the  "niggerhead"  press  (the  Evening 
Post,  Times,  and  Tribune)  and  the  copperhead  papers, 
advocated  the  draft  as  a  means  of  hastening  Union  vic- 
tory, though  it  abused  Lincoln  as  a  nincompoop.  But  the 
World  spoke  of  Lincoln's  "wanton  exercise  of  arbitrary 
powers,"  and  predicted  that  if  the  war  was  carried  on 
to  enforce  the  emancipation  proclamation  a  million  men, 
not  three  hundred  thousand,  would  have  to  be  conscripted. 
"A  measure,"  it  said  of  the  Draft  act,  "which  could  not 
have  been  ventured  upon  in  England  even  in  those  dark 
days  when  the  press-gang  filled  the  English  ships  of  war 
with  slaves  .  .  .  was  thrust  into  the  statute  books,  as 
one  might  say,  almost  by  force."  The  Daily  News  ap- 
plauded the  speeches  at  a  city  peace  meeting  on  July  9, 
where  one  orator  had  declared:  "The  Administration 
now  feels  itself  in  want  of  more  men  to  replace  those  It 
has  slaughtered,  and  to  aid  it  in  upholding  Its  despotism, 
and  for  this  purpose  has  ordered  the  conscription." 


3o6  THE  EVENING  POST 

On  July  II,  1863,  the  draft  began,  and  on  the  13th, 
Monday,  when  an  effort  was  made  to  renew  it,  the  rioting 
commenced.  The  first  disturbances  occurred  at  the  draft 
headquarters  on  the  corner  of  Third  Avenue  and  Forty- 
sixth  Street,  which  were  sacked  about  noon;  the  disorders 
grew  much  worse  on  Tuesday,  and  were  not  entirely  sup- 
pressed until  Thursday.  The  story  of  the  four  days  of 
bloodshed  need  not  be  rehearsed  in  detail,  but  the  Evening 
Post  files  afford  certain  new  lights  upon  it.  The  historian 
Rhodes,  in  his  account,  draws  upon  the  files  of  the  Trib- 
une, Times,  World,  Herald,  and  Post  as  sources,  but 
only  upon  the  issues  of  the  week  of  the  riot.  Ten  days 
later  (July  23)  an  8,000  word  history  of  the  riot  ap- 
peared in  the  Evening  Post,  a  close-knit,  graphic  narra- 
tive, apparently  written  by  Charles  Nordhoff,  who  had 
been  an  eye-witness  of  much  of  it. 

Nordhoff  makes  it  clear  that  the  mob  was  against  not 
merely  the  draft,  but  the  war.  "Seymour's  our  man"; 
"Seymour's  for  us";  "Yis,  and  Wood  too";  "It's  Davis 
and  Seymour  and  Wood,"  were  expressions  heard  at 
every  turn.  "Cheers  for  Jeff  Davis  were  as  common  as 
brickbats."  Above  all,  Nordhoff  was  convinced  that  the 
mob  had  intelligent  leaders  outside  of  Its  own  ranks. 
The  nucleus  of  the  mob  was  a  gang  of  about  fifty  rough 
fellows  who  at  nine  o'clock  In  the  morning  began  prowling 
along  the  East  River  wharves  In  the  Grand  Street  neigh- 
borhood, picking  up  recruits.  As  the  crowd  grew  In  size 
it  entered  foundries  and  factories  for  more  men.  "It  Is 
absolutely  certain  that  there  was  no  planning  or  directing 
head  among  the  acting  ringleaders.  No  one  could  follow 
or  watch  them  without  seeing  that  they  were  Instigated; 
though  by  whom  it  was  Impossible  to  tell.  They  were 
men  themselves  incapable  of  self-direction;  men  of  the 
lowest  order  and  of  the  most  brutal  passions — and  at  that 
doubly  Infuriated  by  rum."  Immediately  the  destruction 
of  the  Third  Avenue  draft  headquarters  was  complete, 
the  mob  split  Into  three  parts,  which  at  once  sought  three 
Important  objectives,  a  fact  which  Nordhoff  regarded  as 
proving  outside  leadership. 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  307 

One  of  the  three  mobs  destroyed  the  Armory  on  Sec- 
ond Avenue  at  Twenty-First  Street — this  was  on  Monday 
at  four  p.  m. ;  a  second  simultaneously  demolished  the 
draft  office  at  Broadway  and  Twenty-ninth  Street;  and 
a  third,  the  largest,  sacked  and  burnt  the  Colored  Orphan 
Asylum  on  Fifth  Avenue.  Meanwhile,  small  groups  had 
begun  hunting  down  negroes  and  clubbing  them  to  death. 
Nordhoff  describes  a  scene  during  the  burning  of  the 
Colored  Orphan  Asylum: 

Opposite  the  Reservoir  stood  a  knot  of  gentlemen,  strangers  to 
each  other.     Said  one  of  them,  a  timid,  clerical-looking  man: 

''What  are  we  coming  to?  Is  this  to  go  on?  Whose  family 
and  dwelling  is  safe?" 

"How  long  is  this  to  last?"  asked  another — who  might  have 
been  a  merchant. 

"I  will  tell  you  how  long,"  replied  a  third,  who  looked  like  a 
Tammany  alderman,  but  as  respectably  dressed  as  either  of  the 
others,  and  buttoning  up  his  coat  to  his  chin  defiantly:  "Just  as 
long  as  you  enact  unjust  laws." 

The  rioting,  Nordhoff  believed,  might  have  been  ended 
the  first  day  by  determined  military  forces.  While  ruf- 
fians at  the  Orphan  Asylum  were  crying,  "Kill  the  little 
devils!"  a  steady  attack  by  a  small  armed  force  would 
have  routed  them.  "The  rioters  evidently  expected  such 
an  attack,  and  at  one  time,  frightened  by  a  squabble  on 
their  outskirts  between  a  few  firemen  and  a  gang  abusing 
a  bystander,  actually  took  to  their  heels,  but  returned  to 
their  work  with  cries  of  derision."  The  first  charge  was 
made  by  the  police  just  after  4  p.  m.  at  the  La  Farge 
Hotel,  and  the  rioters  ran  like  sheep,  leaving  about  thirty 
dead  or  wounded.  Nordhoff's  observation  that  the  pillag- 
ing was  done  mainly  by  women  and  boys,  who  took  two 
hours  to  carry  300  iron  bedsteads  from  the  Orphan  Asy- 
lum, was  borne  out  by  a  news  item  printed  by  the  Post 
during  the  riots: 

HOW  A  HOUSE  IS  SACKED 

Having  witnessed  the  proceedings  of  the  rioters  on  several 
occasions   ...   we  describe  them  for  the  benefit  of  our  readers. 


3o8  THE  EVENING  POST 

On  yesterday  afternoon  about  six  o'clock  they  visited  the  resi- 
dence of  a  gentleman  in  Twenty-ninth  Street.  A  few  stragglers 
appeared  on  the  scene,  consisting  mainly  of  women  and  children. 
Two  or  three  men  then  demanded  and  gained  admittance,  while 
their  number  was  largely  increased  on  the  outside.  One  elderly 
gentleman  was  found  who  had  liberty  to  leave.  Then  commenced 
indiscriminate  plunder.  This  was  carried  on  mostly  by  old  men, 
women  and  children,  while  the  ''men  of  muscle"  stood  guard. 
Every  article  was  appropriated,  the  carriers  often  bending  under 
their  burden.  Women  and  children,  hatless  and  shoeless,  marched 
off  having  in  their  possession  the  most  costly  of  fabrics,  some  of 
them  broken  and  unfit  for  use. 

To  this  wanton  destruction  of  private  property  the  neighbors 
and  the  many  visitors  drawn  to  the  spot  were  silent  spectators.  A 
word  of  remonstrance  cost  a  life.  Two  gentlemen,  we  are  in- 
formed, paid  the  penalty  yesterday  for  expressing  their  righteous 
indignation.  .  .  . 

An  hour  later,  in  another  visit,  we  saw  the  crowd  engaged  in 
breaking  the  sashes  and  carrying  off  the  fragments  of  woodwork. 

Nordhoff  gave  high  praise  to  the  city  police  and  the 
United  States  troops,  but  thought  the  State  militia  mis- 
erably ineffective,  and  the  firemen  often  allies  of  the  mob. 
He  ascertained  that  the  rioters'  casualties  were  much 
higher  than  the  public  believed,  and  estimated  that  400 
to  500  lives  were  lost.  "A  continuous  stream  of  funerals 
flows  across  the  East  River,  and  graves  are  dug  privately 
within  the  knowledge  of  the  police  here  and  there." 

Just  how  much  basis  there  was  for  the  Evening  Post's 
view  that  the  mob  was  not  spontaneous,  but  instigated 
by  disloyalist  leaders  of  brains,  it  is  impossible  to  say. 
On  the  second  day  "a  distinguished  and  sagacious  Demo- 
crat," Bryant  wrote  editorially,  visited  the  office  to  warn 
him  that  the  riots  "had  a  firmer  basis  and  a  more  fixed 
object  than  we  imagined."  But  it  is  certain  that  the 
copperhead  press  seemed  to  cheer  on  the  mob  even  while 
it  denounced  it.  Thus  the  World  on  Tuesday  spoke  of 
the  rioters  as  possessed  "with  a  burning  sense  of  wrong 
toward  the  government,"  and  though  it  appealed  to  them 
to  stop,  asked:  "Does  any  man  wonder  that  poor  men 
refuse  to  be  forced  into  a  war  mismanaged  almost  into 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  309 

hopelessness,  perverted  almost  into  partisanship?"  The 
Evening  Post  was  particularly  incensed  by  the  Herald's 
references  to  the  riots  as  a  "popular"  outbreak,  and  that 
of  the  Daily  News  to  "the  people  fired  on  by  United 
States  soldiers."  Not  the  people.  It  said;  "a  small  band 
of  cutthroats,  pickpockets,  and  robbers."  It  wanted  the 
miscreants  given  an  abundance  of  grape  and  canister  with- 
out delay,  and  declared  that  an  officer  who  had  used 
blank  cartridges  ought  to  be  shot.  To  this  the  Herald 
made  its  usual  impudent  kind  of  rejoinder.  Aren't  the 
members  of  the  mob  people,  It  asked?  They  have  arms, 
legs,  and  five  senses;  "their  Intelligence  is  low,  but  it  is 
at  least  equal  to  that  of  the  editors  of  the  niggerhead 
organs." 

Ill 

News  of  the  complete  victory  at  VIcksburg,  arriving  In 
New  York  at  the  same  time  that  it  became  evident  Meade 
was  not  vigorously  following  up  his  repulse  of  Lee  at 
Gettysburg,  brought  home  to  the  East  the  superiority 
of  Grant  as  a  commander.  That  superiority  the  Evening 
Post  had  begun  to  recognize  as  early  as  Feb.  14,  1862, 
when  it  had  contrasted  his  capture  of  Fort  Donelson,  In 
a  sea  of  mud,  using  men  half  trained  and  half  supplied, 
with  McClellan's  Inaction  In  Virginia.  "A  capable,  clear- 
headed general,"  it  said,  who  knew  that  where  there  Is  a 
will  there  is  a  way.  After  Corinth  the  paper  hailed 
Grant  (Oct.  8,  1862)  as  the  one  general  "able  not  only 
to  shake  the  tree,  but  to  pick  up  the  fruit."  When  by  a 
brilliantly  bold  campaign  he  invested  VIcksburg,  It  used 
precisely  the  comparison  that  John  Fiske  used  years  later 
In  his  history  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  In  the  Civil  War: 
"The  dispatches  from  the  Southwest  read  like  the  bul- 
letins of  the  young  conqueror  of  Italy  when  he  first 
awakened  the  world  to  the  fact  that  a  new  and  unprece- 
dented military  genius  had  sprung  upon  the  stage." 

Sober  history  doubts  whether  Lincoln  actually  said  that 
if  he  knew  what  whisky  Grant  used  he  would  send  other 
generals  a  barrel;  but  the  Evening  Post  almost  said  It. 


310  THE  EVENING  POST 

Just  after  the  surrender  of  Vicksburg  it  published  (July 
8)  a  defense  of  Grant  from  the  charge  that  he  drank 
heavily.  It  recalled  the  many  evidences  of  his  single- 
mindedness,  alertness,  and  decision,and  the  fact  that  he 
had  gained  more  victories  and  prisoners  than  any  other 
commander.  "If  any  one  after  this,"  it  concluded,  "still 
believes  that  Grant  is  a  drunkard,  we  advise  him  to  per- 
suade the  Government  to  place  none  but  drunkards  in 
important  commands." 

Years  later  the  Evening  Post  related  that  while  Grant 
lay  before  Vicksburg,  a  letter  from  a  prominent  West- 
erner assured  the  editors  that  the  general  and  his  staff 
had  once  gone  from  Springfield  to  Cairo  in  the  car  of 
the  president  of  the  Illinois  Central,  and  that  almost  the 
whole  party  had  got  drunk.  Grant  worst  of  all.  By  a 
coincidence,  while  this  letter  was  under  discussion  Presi- 
dent Osborne  of  the  Illinois  Central  entered  the  office. 
He  characterized  it  as  a  malignant  falsehood.  "Grant 
and  his  staff  did  go  down  to  Cairo  in  the  President's  car," 
he  said;  "I  took  them  down  myself,  and  selected  that 
car  because  it  had  conveniences  for  working,  eating,  and 
sleeping  on  the  way.  We  had  dinner  in  the  car,  at  which 
wine  was  served  to  such  as  desired  it.  I  asked  Grant 
what  he  would  drink;  he  answered,  a  cup  of  tea,  and  this 
I  made  for  him  myself.  Nobody  was  drunk  on  the  car, 
and  to  my  certain  knowledge  Grant  tasted  no  liquid  but 
tea  and  water." 

After  Grant  was  made  commander-in-chief  in  March, 
1864,  and  took  charge  in  the  East,  the  Evening  Post 
was  confident  that  victory  was  at  hand.  This  faith  in- 
creased during  the  summer.  Bryant  wrote  Bigelow  on 
June  15  that  the  North  ought  certainly  to  bring  the  war 
to  an  end  within  the  year,  at  least  so  far  as  concerned  all 
great  military  operations.  On  Sept.  3,  just  after  Grant 
had  asked  for  100,000  additional  men,  he  said  editorially 
that  if  he  were  given  them,  peace  might  be  won  by  Thanks- 
giving. The  next  day,  when  news  had  come  that  Sherman 
had  captured  Atlanta,  the  paper  renewed  the  prophecy 
of  an  early  triumph,   changing  the  date,   however,   to 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  311 

Christmas.  It  no  longer  grumbled  over  military  nervous- 
ness and  dllatorlness.  It  was  disturbed  by  the  state  of 
the  currency,  which  was  making  the  public  debt  twice  what 
It  should  have  been;  but  Its  chief  fear  was  that  the  men 
at  the  North  In  favor  of  a  premature  peace  would  rob  the 
Union  of  the  fruits  of  Its  bloody  struggle. 

As  early  as  December,  1862,  and  January,  1863, 
Greeley  had  begun  In  the  Tribune  a  movement  for  ending 
the  war  by  foreign  mediation  between  North  and  South. 
The  following  month  Napoleon  III  actually  made  an 
offer  of  mediation,  which  Lincoln  Immediately  refused. 
Advance  news  of  It  had  been  sent  Bryant  by  BIgelow., 
and  the  Post  was  ready  to  speak  vigorously  against  It. 
Greeley  In  July,  1864,  again  tried  to  Initiate  peace  nego- 
tiations, and  asked  Lincoln  to  arrange  a  conference  at 
Niagara  with  two  Confederate  "ambassadors"  who  were 
reported  to  be  there,  telling  him  that  "our  bleeding, 
bankrupt,  almost  dying  country  longs  for  peace,  shudders 
at  the  prospect  of  fresh  conscriptions,  of  further  devasta- 
tions, and  of  new  rivers  of  human  blood."  The  attitude 
of  the  Evening  Post  was  contemptuous.  "No,"  wrote 
Bryant  as  Greeley  bought  his  ticket  to  Niagara,  "the  most 
effective  peace  meetings  yet  held  are  those  which  Grant 
assembled  In  front  of  VIcksburg,  which  Meade  conducted 
on  the  Pennsylvania  plains,  which  Rosecrans  now  pre- 
sides over  near  Tullahoma ;  their  thundering  cannons  are 
the  most  eloquent  orators,  and  the  bullet  which  wings 
its  way  to  the  enemy  ranks  the  true  olive  branch." 

There  was  some  fear  for  the  moment  that  the  Times 
would  join  the  Tribune  In  its  readiness  for  peace  without 
victory.  Bryant  wrote  his  wife  on  Sept.  7,  1864,  that  he 
had  a  good  deal  of  political  news  which  he  could  not  put 
in  his  letter.  "I  wrote  a  protest  against  treating  with  the 
Rebel  Government,  which  you  will  have  seen  in  the  paper. 
...  I  was  told  from  the  best  authority  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  considering  whether  he  should  not  appoint  commis- 
sioners for  the  purpose,  and  I  afterwards  heard  that 
Raymond  of  the  Times  had  been  in  Washington  to  per- 
suade Mr.  Lincoln  to  take  the  step,  and  was  wiUIng  him- 


312  THE  EVENING  POST 

self  to  be  one  of  the  commissioners."  Bryant's  1,500 
word  editorial,  "No  Negotiations  With  the  Rebel  Gov- 
ernment," anticipated  the  arguments  of  Lincoln's  mes- 
sage to  Congress  in  December  opposing  any  parley. 

At  this  moment  the  Democratic  party  was  carrying  on 
its  campaign  for  the  Presidency  upon  a  platform  which 
declared  the  war  a  failure,  and  asserted  that  an  armistice 
should  be  sought  at  the  first  practicable  opportunity.  It 
is  true  that  McClellan,  the  party's  candidate,  had  re- 
pudiated these  planks.  But  when  he  did  so,  Fernando 
Wood  had  wanted  at  once  to  repudiate  McClellan,  saying 
that  the  platform  was  sound,  and  that  the  Democrats 
should  call  their  Chicago  Convention  together  again  to 
seek  a  man  who  would  stand  upon  it.  The  Daily  News, 
edited  by  his  brother  Benjamin  Wood,  similarly  upheld 
the  platform.  So  did  the  World,  which  went  to  shocking 
lengths  In  attacking  Lincoln;  not  content  with  calling  his 
Administration  ignorant  and  incompetent,  it  cast  Imputa- 
tions upon  his  personal  honesty,  while  In  a  phrase  that 
became  temporarily  famous  It  remarked  that  the  White 
House  was  "full  of  Infamy."  According  to  the  World, 
the  war  could  and  should  be  stopped  instantly.  The 
South  was  ready  to  reenter  the  Union  If  only  Lincoln 
would  cancel  his  outrageous  emancipation  proclamation. 
"Are  unknown  thousands  of  wives  yet  to  become  widows, 
and  unknown  tens  of  thousands  of  children  to  become 
orphans,  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  positive  violations  of  solemn 
pledges  may  be  assumed  by  the  people  as  their  own?" 
Manton  Marble  argued  throughout  the  campaign  for  an 
armistice,  a  convention  of  all  the  States,  and  an  effort  to 
conclude  peace  upon  the  basis  of  union  and  slavery. 
Emancipation,  he  asserted,  meant  "industrial  disorganiza- 
tion, social  chaos,  negro  equality,  and  the  nameless  hor- 
rors of  a  civil  war." 

In  this  election  the  Evening  Post  maintained  a  straight 
course.  Early  in  the  year  Bryant  had  Inclined  to  doubt, 
as  did  Beecher,  Greeley,  Thaddeus  Stevens,  George  W. 
Julian,  and  a  majority  of  Congress,  whether  Lincoln's  re- 
nominatlon  would  be  wise.    This  was  a  reflection  In  part 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  313 

of  his  impatient  "radicalism,"  In  part  of  his  attachment 
to  Chase;  and  on  March  25,  1864,  he  made  one  of  many 
prominent  Union  men  who  wrote  the  Republican  Execu- 
tive Committee  suggesting  a  postponement  of  the  Con- 
vention until  September.  But  no  hint  of  this  doubt  en- 
tered the  columns  of  the  Evening  Post.  It  never  spoke 
of  any  other  possible  nomination  than  Lincoln's.  Indeed, 
every  one  soon  saw  that  the  choice  was  inevitable,  and 
Bryant  cast  whatever  hesitation  he  felt,  which  was  not 
much,  behind  him.  "It  was  done  In  obedience  to  the 
public  voice,"  he  wrote  BIgelow  June  15,  "a  powerful 
vis  a  tergo  pushed  on  the  politicians  whether  willing  or 
unwilling.  I  do  not,  for  my  part,  doubt  of  his  reelec- 
tion." By  this  time  the  Evening  Post  was  ready  to  admit 
that  the  President  had  made  fewer  errors  and  seen  more 
clearly  than  It  had  supposed.    It  wrote  (Sept.  20)  : 

He  has  gained  wisdom  by  experience.  Every  year  has  seen 
our  cause  more  successful ;  every  year  has  seen  abler  generals,  more 
skillful  leaders,  called  to  the  head ;  every  year  has  seen  fewer  errors, 
greater  ability,  greater  energy,  in  the  administration  of  affairs. 
The  timid  McClellan  has  been  superseded  by  Grant,  the  do- 
nothing  Buell  by  Sherman ;  wherever  a  man  has  shown  con- 
spicuous merit  he  has  been  called  forward;  political  and  military 
rivalries  have  been  as  far  as  possible  banished  from  the  field  and 
from  the  national  councils.  .  .  .  While  Mr.  Lincoln  stays  in 
power,  this  healthy  and  beneficial  state  of  things  will  con- 
tinue. .  .  . 

Throughout  the  campaign  Pafke  Godwin  did  much 
public  speaking.  During  October  the  Post  published  a 
weekly  campaign  newspaper  addressed  particularly  to 
laboring  men,  which  had  an  enormous  circulation  at 
one  cent  a  copy;  the  edition  the  first  week  was  50,000. 
In  Its  local  result  the  election  justified  the  labors  of  the 
copperhead  press,  for  McClellan  carried  New  York  city 
by  a  vote  double  Lincoln's — 78,746  to  36,673.  But  the 
national  result  showed  how  totally  unrepresentative  this 
anti-war  press  was  of  any  extensive  Northern  sentiment. 
It  proved  that  Bryant  had  been  right  in  declaring  in  the 
Post  of  March  16,  1863,  when  Greeley  and  the  Tribune 


314  THE  EVENING  POST 

actually  said  the  nation  should  give  up  if  the  campaign 
then  beginning  failed: 

It  certainly  is  remarkable  how  unable  the  newspapers  of  the 
country,  even  those  of  the  largest  circulation,  have  been  to  divert 
the  public  mind  from  a  fixed  determination  to  put  down  the 
rebellion  by  every  possible  means,  and  to  allow  no  pause  in  the 
war  until  the  integrity  of  the  Union  is  assured.  One  class  of 
journals  has  labored  to  show. that  the  war  for  the  Union  is  hope- 
less; the  people  have  never  believed  them.  One  class  has  called 
for  a  revolutionary  leader ;  the  call  has  only  excited  a  little  aston- 
ishment, the  people  being  satisfied  to  prosecute  the  war  under  the 
legal  and  constitutional  authorities. 

The  last  effort  at  a  premature  armistice,  that  made 
by  the  venerable  Francis  P.  Blair,  culminating  in  the 
Hampton  Roads  conference  between  Lincoln  and  Vice- 
President  A.  H.  Stephens,  was  treated  by  the  Evening 
Post  like  previous  efforts.  Blair  was  an  old  friend,  but 
under  the  caption,  "Fools'  Errands,"  Bryant  wrote  (Jan. 
lo,  1865)  that  his  gratuitous  diplomacy  might  do  much 
harm.  "No,  our  best  peacemakers  yet  are  Grant,  Sheri- 
dan, Thomas,  Sherman,  and  Farragut,  and  the  black- 
mouthed  bulldogs  by  which  they  enforce  their  pretensions 
over  more  than  half  of  what  was  once  an  'impregnable' 
part  of  rebeldom."  The  final  peace,  the  peace  made  by 
the  black-mouthed  bulldogs,  was  greeted  by  the  Post 
three  months  later  in  fervent  terms : 

GLORY  TO  THE  LORD  OF  HOSTS 

The  great"  day,  so  long  and  anxiously  awaited,  for  which  we 
have  struggled  through  four  years  of  bloody  war,  which  has  so 
often  .  .  .  dawned  only  to  go  down  in  clouds  of  gloom;  the  day 
of  the  virtual  overthrow  of  the  rebellion,  of  the  triumph  of  con- 
stitutional order  and  of  universal  liberty, — of  the  success  of  the 
nation  against  its  parts,  and  of  a  humane  and  beneficent  civiliza- 
tion over  a  relic  of  barbarism  that  had  been  blindly  allowed  to 
remain  as  a  blot  on  its  scutcheon — the  day  of  PEACE  has  finally 
come.  .  .  . 

Glory,  then  to  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  who  hath  given  us  this  final 
victory!     Thanks,  heartfelt  and  eternal,  to  the  brave  and  noble 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  315 

men  by  land  and  sea,  officers  and  soldiers,  who  by  their  labors, 
their  courage  and  sufferings,  their  blood  and  their  lives,  have  won 
it  for  us.  And  a  gratitude  no  less  deep  and  earnest  to  that  majestic, 
devoted,  and  glorious  American  people,  who  through  all  these  years 
of  trial  have  kept  true  to  their  faith  in  themselves  and  their 
institutions.  .  .  . 

IV 

Throughout  the  Civil  War  the  news  pages  were  in 
charge  of  one  of  the  most  picturesque  and  able  men  ever 
employed  by  the  paper,  Charles  Nordhoff.  It  was  a 
trying  position.  O.  W.  Holmes  wrote  an  essay  in  1861 
called  "Bread  and  Newspapers,"  in  which  he  described 
the  state  of  mind  in  which  the  North  lived,  waiting  but 
from  one  edition  to  another.  The  Civil  War  was  the 
heroic  age  of  American  press  enterprise,  and  while  the 
Evening  Post  conducted  a  less  extensive  war  establish- 
ment than  the  Her  aid  j  Tribune,  or  Times — the  Herald 
spent  $500,000  on  its  correspondence — Nordhoff  saw 
that  it  maintained  a  creditable  position.  He  stepped  into 
the  office  just  after  Bigelow's  departure,  in  1861.  Along 
with  Bigelow  the  Post  had  just  lost  William  M.  Thayer. 
This  young  man,  after  a  brilliant  ten  years  partly  in  New 
York,  partly  as  the  only  correspondent  with  the  Walker 
filibustering  expedition  in  Nicaragua,  and  partly  in  Wash- 
ington, had  quarreled  with  Isaac  Henderson,  while  at  the 
same  time  his  health  failed;  and  he  was  glad  to  be  ap- 
pointed consul  at  Alexandria.  Nordhoff's  chief  assistant 
in  gathering  news  became  Augustus  Maverick,  a  veteran 
newspaper  man  previously  with  the  Times. 

Nordhoff,  though  only  thirty  years  old  in  1831,  had 
already  passed  through  enough  adventure  to  fill  an  active 
lifetime.  He  was  born  in  Prussia,  where  his  father  was 
a  wealthy  liberal  who  had  served  in  Blucher's  army  and 
had  later  set  up  a  school  at  Erwitte.  Compelled  for 
political  reasons  to  leave,  the  elder  Nordhoff  gathered  to- 
gether all  his  funds,  about  $50,000,  and  reached  America 
in  1834.  The  family  went  to  the  Mississippi  Valley,  and 
for  a  time  lived  an  anomalous  life,  eating  in  the  wilder- 
ness from  rich  silver  and  drinking  imported  German 


3i6  THE  EVENING  POST 

mineral  water.  The  boy  was  left  an  orphan  at  the  age 
of  nine,  and  was  reared  by  the  Rev.  Wllhelm  Nast  of  the 
Methodist  Church  in  Cincinnati.  Revolting  against  the 
rigid  ecclesiastical  discipline  to  which  he  was  subjected, 
believing  that  his  health  was  suffering  from  indoors  work, 
and  longing  for  the  adventures  at  sea  of  which  he  had 
read  in  Marryat  and  Cooper,  in  1844  he  ran  away. 

Hundreds  of  thousands  of  American  boys  in  the  last 
half  century  have  read  the  three  books  in  which  Nordhoff 
graphically  relates  his  experiences  aboard  men  of  war, 
merchant  ships,  a  whaler,  and  a  cod-fishing  boat.  The 
story  of  how  he  went  to  sea  is  an  interesting  illustration 
of  his  pluck  and  persistence.  He  had  $25,  two  extra 
shirts,  and  an  extra  pair  of  socks  when  he  left  Cincinnati, 
and  his  money  took  him  to  Baltimore.  At  every  vessel 
to  which  he  applied  he  was  met  by  the  same  rebuff :  "Ship 
you,  you  little  scamp?  Not  I;  we  won't  carry  runaway 
boys.  Clear  out!"  Undaunted,  he  went  on  to  Phila- 
delphia, and  found  a  place  on  the  Sun  as  printer's  devil, 
at  $2-4  a  week  and  his  board.  He  confided  his  ambition 
to  no  one,  but  every  Saturday  afternoon  he  was  down 
among  the  shipping,  looking  for  a  place.  Finally  he  heard 
that  the  Frigate  Columbus,  74  guns,  was  about  to  sail 
under  Commodore  BIddle  for  the  Far  East,  and  sought 
a  berth — again  in  vain.  Still  undiscouraged,  he  induced 
the  editor  of  the  Sun,  to  whose  home  he  daily  took  a 
bundle  of  proofs,  to  introduce  him  to  Commodore  Elliot. 
The  editor's  note  ran,  "Please  give  him  a  talking  to,"  and 
the  gruff  officer  scolded  the  boy  roundly  for  wanting  to 
ruin  his  life,  described  the  dissolute,  brutalizing  existence 
of  most  sailors,  and  flatly  refused  him  a  place.  But  Nord- 
hoff returned  daily  until  the  Commodore  yielded. 

The  boy  soon  realized  that  the  sailor's  life  had  little 
of  the  romance  that  Cooper  gave  it,  but  he  showed  both 
his  grit  and  shrewdness  when  with  a  distinct  literary 
intention  he  made  the  most  of  it.  He  went  around  the 
world  in  the  Columbus,  and  was  discharged  at  Norfolk 
in  1848;  for  several  years  he  worked  in  the  merchant 
marine,  visiting  Europe,  Asia,  South  America,  Australia, 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  317 

and  the  South  Sea  islands;  sailing  from  Sag  Harbor  in  a 
whaler  which  cruised  in  the  Indian  Ocean,  he  deserted  at 
the  Seychelles,  and  for  a  time  supported  himself  as  a 
boatman  in  Mauritius;  and  he  finished  his  eight  years  at 
sea  by  a  brief  period  with  the  Cape  Cod  fishermen.  All 
the  while  he  was  busy  collecting  material  for  his  books, 
losing  no  opportunity  to  share  new  sights  and  experiences, 
and  pumping  his  mates  for  their  stories.  He  wrote  his 
three  volumes  to  give  a  common-sense  picture  of  a  life 
which  he  believed  had  been  unduly  romanticized;  and 
his  pictures  of  flogging  in  the  navy,  of  dysentery  and 
cholera  aboard  a  frigate,  of  the  degradation  of  the  naval 
discipline,  of  the  danger  and  hardship  met  on  a  merchant 
craft,  and  of  the  intolerable  monotony  of  whale-hutvtin^, 
^arry  out  the  purpose.  It  was  good  preliminary  training 
for  a  reporter  and  editor.  In  1853  he  entered  journal- 
ism, first  on  the  Philadelphia  Register  and  later  on  the 
Indianapolis  Sentinel,  meanwhile  writing  the  sea  books, 
which  gave  him  such  a  reputation  that  in  1853  George  W. 
Curtis  recommended  him  to  Harper's  as  an  editorial 
worker. 

Bigelow  in  the  closing  days  of  i860  made  an  arrange- 
ment with  Brantz  Meyer,  a  Baltimore  writer  of  some 
reputation,  to  go  South  for  $50  a  week  and  his  expenses 
to  do  special  reporting.  He  wrote  R.  B.  Rhett,  editor 
of  the  Charleston  Mercury ,  asking  whether  it  would  be 
safe  for  Meyer  to  attend  the  secession  convention  in 
Charleston,  and  Rhett  assured  him  that  "no  agent  or 
representative  of  the  Evening  Post  would  be  safe  in  com- 
ing here";  "he  would  certainly  be  tarred  and  feathered 
and  made  to  leave  the  State,  as  the  mildest  possible  treat- 
ment"; "he  would  come  with  his  life  in  his  hand,  and 
would  probably  be  hung."  Nevertheless,  the  Post  did 
have  unsigned  correspondence  from  Charleston  and  other 
Southern  cities  during  the  days  the  secession  movement 
was  ripening.  When  war  began,  Nordhoff  hurriedly 
whipped  a  corps  of  special  writers  into  shape.  He  re- 
quested Henry  M.  Alden,  later  editor  of  Harper's  to  go 
to  the  Virginia  front,  but  Alden's  health  was  too  precari- 


3i8  THE  EVENING  POST 

ous  to  permit  him  to  face  the  hardships  which  other 
young  literary  men  like  E.  C.  Stedman  were  undertaking. 
William  C.  Church,  a  rising  young  journalist,  who  later 
established  the  Army  and  Navy  Journal  and  the  Galaxy y 
was  obtained.  Philip  Ripley  made  another  of  the  staff, 
and  Walter  F.  Williams  was  soon  sending  admirable 
letters  from  the  field. 

Repeatedly  during  the  war  the  Post  scored  notable 
"beats."  Church  was  with  the  joint  military  and  naval 
expedition  under  Sherman  and  Dupont  that  captured  Port 
Royal,  and  sent  the  Evening  Post  the  first  account  pub- 
lished at  the  North.  The  best  picture  of  the  battle  of 
Pittsburgh  Landing  in  any  newspaper  was  one  contributed 
the  Post  by  a  member  of  Halleck's  staff.  The  most 
graphic  running  account  of  Sherman's  march  to  the  sea 
was  also  that  furnished  the  paper  by  Major  George  Nich- 
ols, who  was  on  Sherman's  staff,  and  who  later  reworked 
his  letters — in  which  It  has  been  well  said  the  style  Is 
photographic,  with  a  touch  of  national  music  In  the  sen- 
tences— Into  a  book.  When  John  Wilkes  Booth  was 
killed  In  the  burning  Virginia  barn  by  Sergeant  Boston 
Corbett,  Nordhoff  obtained  Corbett's  exclusive  story  of 
the  event — an  absorbing  three-quarters  column  of  close 
print.  It  need  not  be  said  that  the  Paris  correspondence 
which  E.  L.  Godkin,  later  editor,  furnished  in  1862,  of- 
fered the  shrewdest  and  clearest  view  of  French  opinion 
published  In  any  American  newspaper.  There  was  a 
large  group  of  occasional  correspondents  at  various 
points  along  the  wide  fighting  line.  The  Evening  Post 
profited.  In  a  way  that  It  was  quite  impossible  for  the 
Herald  to  do,  from  the  kindness  of  loyal  Union  men  of 
prominence  who  came  Into  contact  with  great  events  or 
figures,  and  without  thought  of  remuneration  wrote  to 
Bryant.  A  long  and  highly  Interesting  article  embodying 
personal  reminiscences  of  Lincoln,  for  example,  was  con- 
tributed a  few  weeks  after  the  assassination  by  R.  C. 
McCormick,  then  well  known  in  New  York  political  cir- 
cles.   There  were  frequent  bits  like  the  following  from  a 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  319 

New  Yorker  who  had  seen  Grant  at  City  Point  (Aug.  5, 
1864): 

"General,"  I  remarked,  "the  people  of  New  York  now  feel  that 
there  is  one  at  the  head  of  our  armies  in  whom  they  can  repose 
the  fullest  confidence." 

"Yes,"  he  interrupted,  "there  is  a  man  in  the  West  in  whom 
they  can  repose  the  utmost  confidence,  General  Sherman.  He  is 
an  able,  upright,  honorable,  unambitious  man.  We  lost  another 
one  of  like  character  a  few  days  ago.  General  McPherson." 

One  reporter  for  the  Post^  a  young  Vermonter  named 
S.  S.  Boyce,  became  intimate  with  the  United  States  Mar- 
shal in  New  York,  and  distinguished  himself  by  important 
detective  service  against  disloyalists.  The  Marshal  once 
handed  him  a  letter  taken  upon  a  captured  blockade  run- 
ner, mailed  from  New  York  and  giving  the  Southern  au- 
thorities the  time  of  the  sailing  of  the  Newbern  expedi- 
tion. It  carried  no  New  York  address,  but  within  a 
fortnight  Boyce  had  tracked  down  the  writer  of  the 
letter,  and  some  months  later  witnessed  his  hanging. 

Many  traditions  long  survived  in  the  office  of  Nord- 
hoff's  energy,  courage,  shrewdness,  and  impassivity  in 
moments  of  excitement.  He  was  a  man  of  the  world,  and 
his  sense  for  news  was  amazing.  Expected  to  contribute 
to  the  editorial  page  as  well  as  manage  the  news  staff,  he 
would  seat  himself  at  his  desk  and  write  with  unresting 
hand,  meanwhile  puffing  a  black  cigar  so  furiously  that 
he  could  hardly  see  his  sheet  through  the  smoke.  A 
bluff  seamanlike  quality  was  always  distinguishable  about 
him;  he  walked  with  a  sailor's  roll,  and  used  nautical 
terms  with  unconscious  frequency.  His  executive  ability, 
geniality,  fearlessness,  and  intense  hatred  of  anything 
equivocal  or  underhanded,  made  the  staff  love  him.  Mr. 
J.  Ranken  Towse,  who  knew  him  after  the  war,  says  that 
"he  had  a  comprehensive  grasp  of  essential  knowledge,  a 
great  store  of  common  sense,  a  rare  faculty  of  penetrating 
insight,  and  a  huge  scorn  for  prevarication  or  double- 
dealing.  A  mistake  due  to  ignorance  or  carelessness  he 
could  and  often  did  overlook,  but  anything  in  the  nature 


320  THE  EVENING  POST 

of  a  shuffling  excuse  roused  him  to  flaming  ire.  He  was 
impetuous  and  irascible,  but  naturally  generous  and  ten- 
der-hearted." 

During  the  Draft  Riots  Nordhoff  connected  a  hose  with 
the  steam-boiler  in  the  basement  and  gave  public  notice 
that  any  assailant  would  meet  a  scalding  reception.  He 
had  not  only  the  Evening  Post  property  to  protect,  but  a 
score  of  wounded  soldiers  in  a  temporary  hospital  fitted 
up  on  an  upper  floor.  The  strain  under  wihch  he  lived 
in  the  war  days  was  intense,  and  he  used  to  spend  the 
summer  nights  on  a  small  sailboat  which  he  kept  on  the 
Brooklyn  waterfront,  for  he  could  sleep  more  soundly 
drifting  about  the  bay  than  on  shore.  Yet  he  managed  to 
find  time  to  contribute  to  the  newspaper's  atmosphere  of 
literary  sociability.  Paul  Du  Chaillu  had  become  his 
friend  when,  as  a  worker  at  Harper's,  he  helped  put  some 
of  Du  Chaillu's  books  into  good  English,  and  a  story 
survives  of  how  Du  Chaillu  and  Nordhoff  once  took  pos- 
session of  the  restaurant  stove  across  the  street  from  the 
Evening  Post,  and  taught  the  cook  to  broil  bananas — the 
first  bananas  ever  eaten  cooked  in  the  city.  Nordhoff's 
impress  was  visible  everywhere  in  the  paper  of  those 
years,  and  its  marked  prosperity  was  in  large  degree 
traceable  to  his  energy.  The  local  reporting  was  better 
than  ever  before,  and  we  are  tempted  to  discern  his  own 
hand  in  the  frequent  human-interest  paragraphs,  of  which 
one  may  be  given  as  a  specimen: 

AN  INCIDENT  IN  THE  CARS 
In  a  car  on  a  railroad  which  runs  into  New  York,  a  few  morn- 
ings ago,  a  scene  occurred  which  will  not  soon  be  forgotten  by  the 
witnesses  of  it.  A  person  dressed  as  a  gentleman,  speaking  to  a 
friend  across  the  car,  said:  "Well,  I  hope  the  war  may  last  six 
months  longer.  In  the  last  six  months  IVe  made  a  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars — six  months  more  and  I  shall  have  enough." 

A  lady  sat  behind  the  speaker,  and  .  .  .  when  he  was  done  she 
tapped  him  on  the  shoulder  and  said  to  him:  "Sir,  I  had  two 
sons — one  was  killed  at  Fredericksburg;  the  other  was  killed  at 
Murfreesboro." 

She  was  silent  a  moment  and  so  were  all  around  who  heard  her. 
Then,  overcome  by  her   indignation,   she  suddenly  slapped   the 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  321 

Speculator,  first  on  one  cheek  and  then  on  the  other,  and  before 
he  could  say  a  word,  the  passengers  sitting  near,  who  had  wit- 
nessed the  whole  affair,  seized  him  and  pushed  him  hurriedly  out 
of  the  car,  as  not  fit  to  ride  with  decent  people. 

The  Government  censorship  of  news  early  became  a 
painful  and  difficult  question  to  all  journals.  Repeatedly 
during  the  war  Northern  papers  allowed  news  to  leak  to 
the  enemy  which  should  have  been  kept  strictly  secret,  and 
the  Evening  Post  early  recognized  this  danger.  When 
Gtn.  McClellan  in  August,  1861,  drew  up  his  gentlemen's 
agreement  with  the  press,  the  Post  hoped  that  all  editors 
would  acquiesce  in  It,  and  attacked  the  Baltimore  secession 
newspapers  for  giving  the  South  Important  news.  Two 
months  later  it  blamed  the  Herald  and  Commercial  Ad- 
vertiser for  twice  having  given  prominence  to  articles 
they  should  have  suppressed.  Sherman  as  early  as  the 
summer  of  1862  raged  violently  at  the  press  In  his  private 
letters  for  writing  some  generals  up  and  others  down, 
and  the  Post  had  already  (Feb.  27)  commented  upon 
the  same  abuse.  The  Herald  In  March,  1862,  prema- 
turely published  the  news  of  Banks's  passage  of  the  Po- 
tomac, to  the  great  Indignation  of  the  Post,  which  had 
suppressed  It  the  day  before.  But  Nordhoff  himself 
erred  in  September,  when  his  publication  of  some  "con- 
traband" facts  about  the  strength  of  the  forces  at  New- 
bern  brought  a  protest  from  Gen.  Foster.  No  other  mis- 
take of  the  sort  was  made,  and  this  one  did  not  compare 
with  the  blunders  of  other  New  York  journals.  Early 
In  1863  a  Herald  correspondent,  having  foolishly  printed 
the  substance  of  some  confidential  orders,  was  convicted 
and  sentenced  to  six  months  hard  labor  In  the  Quarter- 
master's Department.  In  November,  1864,  the  Times 
brought  an  angry  protest  from  Grant  by  stating  Sher- 
man's exact  strength  and  his  programme  In  the  coming 
march  to  the  sea.  The  Tribune  early  the  next  year,  in- 
forming its  readers  that  Sherman  was  heading  for  Golds- 
boro,  enabled  Gen.  Hardee  on  the  Confederate  side  to 
fight  a  heavy  battle  which  Sherman  had  hoped  to  avoid; 


322  THE  EVENING  POST 

and  the  hero  of  the  great  march  later  refused  to  speak 
to  Greeley. 

But  the  Evening  Post  repeatedly  protested  against  the 
undue  severity  of  the  censorship,  just  as  it  protested 
against  improper  interferences  with  personal  liberty  in 
other  spheres.  It  complained  that  the  rules  laid  down 
by  Stanton  and  the  field  commanders  were  often  capri- 
cious, and  that  by  holding  up  harmless  news  they  bred 
harmful  rumors. 

Thus  on  Sept.  i,  1862,  New  York  was  highly  excited 
all  afternoon  by  a  canard  that  Pope  had  been  pushed 
back  to  Alexandria  and  was  being  beaten  by  the  Con- 
federates within  sight  of  Washington.  Why?  asked  the 
Evening  Post  next  day.  It  was  because  Stanton  wanted 
all  the  correspondents  kept  away  from  the  front,  and  the 
public  was  at  the  mercy  of  every  rogue  or  coward  who 
started  a  false  report.  The  terrible  disaster  of  Freder- 
icksburg was  concealed  by  the  censorship  in  the  most  inex- 
cusable way.  The  battle  was  fought  on  Saturday,  the 
13th  of  December.  On  the  14th  and  15th  there  was  no 
news;  on  the  i6th  the  Post  carried  the  bare  statement  that 
the  army  had  recrossed  the  Rapphannock,  which  it  opti- 
mistically interpreted  as  meaning  that  the  heavy  rains 
had  swollen  the  river  and  imperilled  the  communications. 
On  the  17th  it  knew  that  Burnside's  forces  had  been  flung 
back  with  terrible  slaughter  four  days  before,  and  it 
joined  the  chorus  of  the  New  York  press  in  denouncing 
the  official  secrecy.  The  first  authentic  news  of  this  bat- 
tle was  sent  the  Tribune  by  a  future  owner  of  the  Evening 
Post,  Henry  Villard,  who  obtained  it  by  an  heroic  all- 
night  ride,  and  bringing  it  to  Washington,  evaded  Stan- 
ton's order  by  sending  it  north  by  railway  messenger. 

Similar  secrecy  attended  the  early  stages  of  the  battle 
of  Chancellorsville,  causing  needless  agony  of  mind  at 
the  North  and  profiting  only  the  stock-jobbers.  Just  be- 
fore Gettysburg  rumors  were  afloat  of  a  heavy  blow  to 
Hooker.  C.  C.  Carleton,  said  the  Post,  tried  to  wire  his 
Boston  paper,  "Do  not  accept  sensation  dispatches,"  but 
the  telegraph  censor  brusquely  canceled  this  sensible  mes- 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  323 

sage.  The  Philadelphia  editors  and  correspondents  long 
surpassed  all  others  in  the  picturesqueness  of  their  lies, 
and  the  Post  called  attention  to  some  of  their  master- 
pieces— e.  g.,  their  circumstantial  story  of  the  capture  of 
Richmond  by  Gen.  Keyes  in  1862 — as  made  possible  by 
the  censor's  concealment  of  the  real  facts.  Nordhoff 
complained  that  some  of  the  paper's  dispatches  filed  in 
the  morning  at  10 130  did  not  reach  New  York  till  5  p.  m., 
simply  because  the  censor  was  out  of  his  office  or  negli- 
gent. The  worst  count  in  the  indictment,  however,  was 
that  some  great  bankers  got  news  of  the  battles  by  cipher, 
and  used  it  in  speculation  while  the  people  remained 
ignorant  of  the  actual  events. 

With  the  Civil  War  came  the  first  plentiful  use  of 
headlines  in  the  Evening  Post,  usually  placed  on  page 
three,  where  the  telegraphic  news  was  used.  In  those 
days  verbs  in  headlines  were  conspicuous  chiefly  by  their 
absence;  but  the  writer  knew  his  business.  When  the 
bombardment  of  Sumter  began  he  summarized  the  whole 
significance  of  the  event  in  his  first  two  words :  "CIVIL 
WAR  —  BOMBARDMENT  OF  FORT  SUMTER— 
A  DAY'S  FIGHTING."  After  Bull  Run  he  tried  to 
save  the  feelings  of  New  Yorkers  by  tactful  phrasing: 
"RETROGRADE  MOVEMENT  OF  OUR  ARMY  I 

—GEN.    McDowell    falling    back    on 

WASHINGTON— OUR  LOSS  2,500  to  3,000."  And 
the  two  most  important  headlines  of  the  whole  war  were 
admirable  in  their  simple  fitness.  It  would  be  impossible 
to  improve  upon  the  first  three  words  used  on  April  15, 
"AN  APPALLING  CALAMITY  —  ASSASSINA- 
TION OF  THE  PRESIDENT— MR.  LINCOLN 
SHOT  IN  FORD'S  THEATRE  IN  WASHING- 
TON"; or  upon  the  first  three  of  April  10,  "THE 
GLORIOUS  CONSUMMATION— THE  REBEL- 
LION ENDED— SURRENDER  OF  LEE." 

Throughout  the  war  the  Evening  Post  was  as  distin- 
guished for  one  feature — its  poetry — as  the  Herald  was 
for  its  admirable  maps.  Every  writer  of  verse  took  in- 
spiration from  the  conflict,  and  sent  it  to  the  only  news- 


324  THE  EVENING  POST 

paper  conducted  by  a  great  poet.  A  few  days  after  Sum- 
ter surrendered,  the  editors  declared  that  if  poetry  could 
win  the  war,  they  already  had  enough  to  do  it.  Four 
years  later,  on  April  13,  1865,  they  remarked  that  "we 
have  received  verses  in  celebration  of  the  late  victories 
enough  to  fill  four  or  five  columns  of  our  paper." 

Among  the  first  war  poems  published  by  the  Evening 
Post  were  two  of  genuine  distinction,  R.  H.  Stoddard's 
stirring  call  to  war,  "Men  of  the  North  and  West,"  and 
Christopher  Cranch's  stanzas,  "The  Burial  of  Our  Flag" : 

O  who  are  they  that  troop  along,  and  whither  do  they  go? 

Why  move  they  thus  with  measured  tread,  while  funeral  trumpets 

blow  ? — 
Why  gather  round  that  open  grave  in  mockery  of  woe? 

They  stand  together  on  the  brink — they  shovel  in  the  clod — 
But  what  is  that  they  bury  deep  ? — ^Why  trample  they  the  sod  ? 
Why  hurry  they  so  fast  away  without  a  prayer  to  God? 

It  was  no  corpse  of  friend  or  foe.    I  saw  a  flag  uproUed — 

The  golden  stars,  the  gleaming  stripes  were  gathered  fold  on  fold, 

And  lowered  into  the  hollow  grave  to  rot  beneath  the  mould. 

Then  up  they  hoisted  all  around,  on  towers,  and  hills,  and  crags. 
The  emblem  of  their  traitorous  schemes — their  base  disunion  flags. 
That  very  night  there  blew  a  wind  that  tore  them  all  to  rags ! 

And  one  that  flaunted  bravest  by  the  storm  was  swept  away. 
And  hurled  upon  the  grave  in  which  our  country's  banner  lay — 
Where,  soaked  with  rain  and  stained  with  mud,  they  found  it  the 
next  day. 

From  out  the  North  a  Power  comes  forth — a  patient  power  too 

long — 
The  spirit  of  the  great  free  air — a  tempest  swift  and  strong; 
The  living  burial  of  our  flag — he  will  not  brook  that  wrong. 

The  stars  of  heaven  shall  gild  her  still — her  stripes  like  rainbows 

gleam ; 
Her  billowy  folds,  like  surging  clouds,  o'er  North  and  South  shall 

stream. 
She  is  not  dead,  she  lifts  her  head,  she  takes  the  morning's  beam! 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  325 

Much  verse  came  from  writers  of  the  rank  of  Alice 
and  Phoebe  Cary,  who  published  nearly  all  their  war 
poems  in  the  Post.  Mrs.  R.  H.  Stoddard,  still  remem- 
bered as  a  novelist,  wrote  unfinished  but  sincere  and  touch- 
ing poetry.  Miles  O'Reilly,  whom  Walt  Whitman  found 
the  most  popular  writer  of  war  verse  among  the  troops, 
contributed  repeatedly.  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson, 
leading  his  black  troops  in  South  Carolina,  and  recalling 
Bryant's  "Song  of  Marion's  Men,"  sent  his  graceful 
"Song  from  the  Camp."  Park  Benjamin  wrote  much  in 
the  early  years  of  the  war,  and  before  its  close  Helen 
Hunt  Jackson  began  to  appear  in  the  Evening  Post's 
pages.  One  of  the  most  stirring  songs  of  the  conflict, 
"We  are  coming.  Father  Abraham,  three  hundred  thou- 
sand more,"  originally  appeared  in  the  Evening  Post  of 
July  16,  1862.  Unsigned,  many  supposed  it  was  the 
editor's.  At  a  large  Boston  meeting  the  next  night, 
Josiah  Quincy  read  it  as  "the  latest  poem  written  by 
Mr.  Wm.  C.  Bryant."  Its  actual  author  was  John  S. 
Gibbons,  who  for  a  time  was  financial  editor  of  the  Post, 
and  wrote  two  volumes  on  banking. 

Bryant  himself  published  two  hymns  in  the  journal, 
"The  Earth  Is  Full  of  Thy  Riches"  (1863)  and  "Thou 
Hast  Put  All  Things  Under  His  Feet"  (1865).  But 
the  finest  poetical  contribution  which  he  ever  made  to  it 
was  his  "Death  of  Lincoln" : 

O  slow  to  smite,  and  swift  to  spare, 
Gentle  and  merciful  and  just! 

which  first  saw  the  light  in  the  Evening  Post  of  April 
20,  1865. 


CHAPTER  FOURTEEN 

RECONSTRUCTION  AND  IMPEACHMENT 

Most  of  the  metropolitan  newspapers  emerged  from 
the  Civil  War  with  increased  circulation,  and  several,  like 
the  Evening  Post,  with  enhanced  prosperity.  The  cir- 
culation was  not  high  by  present  standards :  when  peace 
was  declared  the  Sun  was  printing  about  50,000  copies, 
the  Times  about  35,000,  and  the  Evening  Post  about 
20,000.  But  the  influence  of  the  New  York  press  has 
never  been  larger,  for  four  great  journalists  were  then 
at  the  height  of  their  reputation.  Raymond  of  the  Times 
had  four  more  years  to  live,  Bennett  of  the  Herald  and 
Greeley  of  the  Tribune  had  seven,  and  Bryant,  the  oldest 
editor  of  all,  thirteen.  The  younger  generation  was  not 
quite  yet  needed — not  until  1868  did  Dana  join  the 
Sun,  and  Whitelaw  Reid  the  Tribune. 

When  the  problems  of  reconstruction  presented  them- 
selves, everybody  knew  where  the  large  group  of  Demo- 
cratic journals  would  stand.  The  Herald,  the  World, 
the  Express,  and  the  Daily  News,  loyal  to  the  grand  old 
party  of  Polk  and  Buchanan,  would  urge  the  restoration 
of  the  Southern  States  to  their  former  standing  as  quickly 
and  gently  as  possible.  The  only  real  curiosity  was  as 
to  the  Evening  Post,  Times,  and  Tribune. 

Having  held  the  radical  views  of  Chase  and  Sumner  In 
the  war,  having  constantly  demanded  more  energy  In  its 
prosecution,  the  Evening  Post  might  have  been  expected 
to  advocate  severity  toward  the  South.  For  a  time  there 
were  indications  that  It  would  do  so.  When  Lincoln, 
just  before  his  death,  declared  in  favor  of  encouraging 
and  perfecting  the  new  State  governments  already  set  up 
In  the  South,  saying  "We  shall  sooner  have  the  fowl  by 
hatching  the  egg  than  by  smashing  It,"  Bryant  was  doubt- 
ful. '  "But  if  it  should  happen  that  these  eggs  are  cocka- 

326 


RECONSTRUCTION  AND  IMPEACHMENT  327 

trice's  eggs,  what  then?"  he  demanded.  For  some  months 
after  Appomattox  the  Post  expressed  Its  wish  that 
"traitors"  Hke  Jefferson  Davis,  Hunter,  Benjamin,  Wig- 
fall,  and  Wise  could  be  brought  to  trial;  It  was  not  neces- 
sary to  put  them  to  death — they  could  be  pardoned  if 
condemned — but  justice  demanded  a  stern  arraignment. 
Yet  It  soon  became  evident  that  the  Evening  Pastes 
Influence  would  be  on  the  side  of  moderation  and  leniency. 
Bryant's  fine  obituary  editorial  on  Lincoln  struck  this 
note  clearly.    He  spoke  of  Lincoln's  gentle  policies : 

How  skillfully  he  had  avoided  and  postponed  needless  troubles, 
the  ease  and  tranquillity  of  our  return  from  a  time  of  passionate 
conflict  to  a  time  of  serene  repose  is  a  proof ;  how  wisely  he  had 
contrived  to  put  off  the  suggestions  of  an  extreme  or  fanatical 
zeal  everybody  has  been  ready  to  acknowledge,  for  Mr.  Lincoln 
brought  to  his  high  office  no  prejudice  of  section,  no  personal 
resentments,  no  unkind  or  bitter  feelings  of  hatred,  and  throughout 
the  trying  time  of  his  Administration  he  has  never  uttered  one 
rancorous  word  toward  the  South.  .  .  . 

The  whole  nation  mourns  the  death  of  its  President,  but  no 
part  of  it  ought  to  mourn  that  death  more  keenly  than  our 
brothers  of  the  South,  who  had  more  to  expect  from  his  clemency 
and  sense  of  justice  than  from  any  other  man  who  could  succeed 
to  his  position.  The  insanity  of  the  assassination,  indeed,  if  it  was 
instigated  by  the  rebels,  appears  in  the  stronger  light  when  we 
reflect  on  the  generosity  and  tenderness  with  which  he  was  dis- 
posed to  close  up  the  war,  to  bury  its  feuds,  to  heal  over  its 
wounds,  and  to  restore  to  all  parts  of  the  nation  that  good  feeling 
which  once  prevailed,  and  which  ought  to  prevail  again.  Let  us 
pray  God  that  those  who  come  after  him  may  imitate  his  virtues 
and  imbibe  the  spirit  of  his  goodness. 

The  stand  taken  by  Bryant's  friend  Chase,  the  poet's 
natural  generosity,  and  the  reports  of  a  desire  for  recon- 
ciliation sent  by  Southern  correspondents,  caused  the 
paper  to  assume  an  unflinching  advocacy  of  President 
Johnson's  mild  policy,  and  to  attack  the  harsh  measures 
of  Congress.  In  this  attitude  the  Times  was  with  it. 
The  Tribune  took  the  other  side  vehemently,  and,  in  a 
more  reasonable  way.  It  was  espoused  by  the  city's  three 
great  weekly  organs  of  opinion,  E.  L.  Godkin's  Nation, 


328  THE  EVENING  POST 

Harper* s  Weekly,  and  the  Independent^  from  which 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  disagreeing  with  Theodore  Til- 
ton's  severe  views,  soon  resigned. 

Into  the  Evening  Post^s  opinions  upon  the  whole  kalei- 
doscopic succession  of  bills  and  acts  bearing  upon  recon- 
struction, from  1865  to  1868,  it  is  impossible  to  go  in 
detail.  Its  fundamental  doctrine  was  fully  outlined  as 
early  as  May  2,  1865.  The  two  great  objects,  it  affirmed, 
were  to  depart  as  little  as  possible  from  the  old-estab- 
lished principles  of  State  government,  and  "to  do  nothing 
for  revenge,  nothing  in  the  mere  spirit  of  proscription." 
It  believed  that  a  convention  should  be  called  in  each 
State  to  annul  the  ordinance  of  secession,  and,  by 
writing  a  new  State  Constitution,  to  repudiate  the  rebel 
debt,  guarantee  the  negroes  equal  civil  rights,  and  reg- 
ulate the  elective  franchise  according  to  immutable  prin- 
ciples of  certain  application,  discarding  all  arbitrary  and 
capricious  rules.  The  States  should  also  ratify  the  anti- 
slavery  amendment  of  the  Federal  Constitution  by  popu- 
lar vote.  "As  soon  as  the  political  power  has  thus  been 
regularly  reconstituted  the  State,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
resumes  her  relations  to  the  Union,  elects  members  of 
Congress,  and  stands  in  all  respects  on  a  footing  with 
the  States"  of  the  North. 

Urging  this  policy,  Bryant  and  the  Evening  Post 
wished  to  end  military  rule  at  the  South  as  quickly  as  pos- 
sible, while  the  Congressional  radicals,  led  by  Wade  and 
Thaddeus  Stevens,  like  the  Tribune  and  Nation,  regarded 
its  indefinite  continuance  as  necessary.  The  Evening  Post 
held  that  the  illiterate  negroes  were  unfit  to  vote  and 
should  be  required  to  pass  through  a  probationary  pe- 
riod; It  wished  the  Southern  ballot  based  upon  an  edu- 
cational test.  The  Tribune  and  the  Sun  supported  full 
negro  suffrage.  When  the  first  Southern  States  sent  Rep- 
resentatives to  Congress  the  Evening  Post,  like  the  Times 
and  World,  wished  them  admitted.  The  World,  indeed, 
bitterly  assailed  the  "rump"  Congress  which  barred  them. 
The  Evening  Post,  Times,  and  World  supported  John- 


RECONSTRUCTION  AND  IMPEACHMENT  329 

son's  veto  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  bill,  while  the  Trib- 
une wrung  its  hands  over  such  journalistic  depravity. 

There  was  some  justification  In  the  objection  of  Har- 
per's Weekly  that  the  Post  was  too  "optimistic."  Bryant 
appealed  to  the  South  to  be  magnanimous  to  the  negro, 
and  to  set  to  work  to  educate  him  and  make  him  the 
white  man's  equal.  He  was  sure  that  "with  their  healthy 
native  constitution,  their  long  training  to  labor,  their 
quick  imitative  faculties,  their  new  motives  to  enterprise, 
the  freedmen  will  grow  into  a  most  useful  class."  The 
Post  underrated  the  enormous  difficulties  of  the  racial 
problem  at  the  South.  But  its  course  was  wisdom  and 
humanity  itself  when  compared  with  that  of  the  Con- 
gressional extremists  who  insisted  upon  confiscation  and 
disfranchisement.  The  Tribune,  .  following  these  ex- 
tremists, called  the  Post  and  Times  "copperhead,"  an 
epithet  which  came  with  ill  grace  from  a  paper  with  the 
Tribune's  war  record.  Greeley  made  an  able  defense  of 
his  policy  In  an  address  in  Richmond  In  May,  1867,  but 
the  Tribune  tended  in  the  hands  of  his  lieutenants  to  be 
more  radical  than  Greeley  himself. 

In  supporting  Johnson,  all  the  moderates  found  their 
chief  enemy  in  Johnson  himself.  When  he  took  the  oath 
of  office  as  Vice-President  the  authentic  reports  of  his 
intoxication  had  caused  the  Evening  Post  to  demand  that 
he  either  resign  or  formally  apologize  to  the  nation.  A 
year  later,  when  he  made  an  abusive  speech  saying  that 
his  opponents  Sumner  and  Stevens  had  tried  "to  incite 
assassination,"  the  journal  again  called  for  an  apology 
to  the  people.  The  Post  supported  the  Civil  Rights  bill 
of  1866,  guaranteeing  the  negro  equality  before  the  law 
with  the  whites.  When  Johnson  vetoed  it,  Bryant  wrote 
in  a  hitherto  unpublished  letter  to  his  daughter : 

The  general  feeling  In  favor  of  that  bill  is  exceedingly  strong, 
and  the  President  probably  did  not  know  what  he  was  doing  when 
he  returned  it  to  Congress.  He  has  been  very  silent  since,  as  if 
the  check  of  passing  the  bill  notwithstanding  his  objections  had 
stunned  him.  Mr.  Bancroft  says  that  he'  must  have  got  some 
small  lawyer  to  write  his  veto  message,  and  Gen.  Dix  thinks  that 


330  THE  EVENING  POST 

the  trouble  at  Washington  lessens  the  eligibility  of  the  President 
for  a  second  term  of  office.  So  you  see  that  those  who  supported 
Johnson's  first  veto  fall  off  now.  Poor  Raymond  seemed  in  great 
perplexity  to  know  which  way  to  turn.  He  supported  the  veto, 
but  his  paper  commended  it  but  faintly  and  admitted  that  some- 
thing ought  to  be  done  from  the  standpoint  of  the  rights  of  Amer- 
ican citizenship  when  denied  by  the  States. 

When  President  Johnson  removed  the  Governor  of 
Louisiana  that  summer,  the  Evening  Post  condemned  his 
act  as  unconstitutional.  It  was  outraged  by  his  dismissal 
of  officeholders  to  influence  the  Congressional  elections 
of  1866.  His  "swing  around  the  circle,"  the  famous 
speaking  tour  to  Chicago  and  back  in  the  early  fall  of 
1866,  in  which  he  lost  all  sense  of  dignity,  talked  of 
hanging  Thad  Stevens,  and  abused  his  opponents  as  "foul 
whelps  of  sin,"  completely  disgusted  the  Post.  "It  is  a 
melancholy  reflection,"  it  said,  "to  those  who  have  found 
it  their  duty  to  support  that  policy  [Johnson's],  that  their 
most  damaging  opponent  is  the  President,  and  that  he 
makes  a  judicious  course  so  hateful  to  the  people  that  no 
argument  is  listened  to.  .  .  ."  It  marveled  at  his  skill 
"to  do  the  wrong  thing  at  the  wrong  time,  to  displease 
everybody,  and  to  delay  that  which  everybody  would  be 
glad  to  have  over."  Moreover,  as  news  arrived  of  wide- 
spread outrages  against  the  negroes  in  the  South,  the 
Post's  attitude  toward  that  section  grew  less  gentle. 

Ratify  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  the  Evening  Post 
urged  the  South  in  the  summer  of  1866;  It  is  the  only 
way  to  hasten  sane  reconstruction.  When  the  Southern- 
ers, already  denying  the  negroes  their  due  place  at  the 
polls  and  in  the  courts,  deliberately  rejected  the  amend- 
ment, it  was  ready  to  give  them  a  stlffer  dose.  In  Feb- 
ruary, 1867,  it  pronounced  in  favor  of  the  great  Recon- 
struction Act,  which  divided  the  ten  Southern  States  into 
five  military  districts,  and  undertook  to  guarantee  the 
negro's  rights  by  force.  That  Is,  the  abuses  perpetrated 
made  It  swing  toward  the  Congressional  standpoint — ^just 
as  general  Northern  sentiment  swung. 

But  when  Congress  determined  to  Impeach  President 


RECONSTRUCTION  AND  IMPEACHMENT  331 

Johnson,  the  protest  of  the  Evening  Post  was  as  Instant 
as  that  of  the  Times  or  Sun.  The  principal  charges  were 
based  upon  the  President's  alleged  violations  of  the  Ten- 
ure of  Office  Act,  which  prohibited  him  from  dismissing 
civil  officers  without  the  consent  of  the  Senate.  When 
this  Act  was  passed  in  July,  1867,  the  Post  had  called  it 
a  silly  and  mischievous  attempt  to  make  the  President  as 
powerless  as  the  Mayor  of  New  York,  and  had  regarded 
it  as  unconstitutional.  The  early  talk  of  impeachment  it 
rebuked  as  threatening  "a  Mexican  madness."  Naturally, 
then,  when  Johnson  defied  Congress  by  dismissing  Secre- 
tary Stanton  without  consulting  the  Senate,  the  editors 
took  the  view  that  his  intention  was  merely  to  bring  the 
act  before  the  courts,  and  that  he  should  not  be  im- 
peached unless  he  persisted  in  further  dismissals  after  the 
Supreme  Court  had  decided  against  him.  They  had 
already  written  (Dec.  2)  that  the  impeachment  talk  did 
not  carry  with  it  the  public  sense  of  justice,  without 
which  it  must  recoil  upon  the  heads  of  its  promoters,  and 
that  Congress  had  enough  useful  constructive  work  to 
do  to  keep  it  busy. 

When  impeachment  was  actually  voted,  the  Post's 
comment  was  sorrowful  rather  than  angry.  "It  is  a 
quarrel  in  which  there  is  really  no  very  great  substance,'* 
it  said.  "It  is  one  that  might  easily  have  been  avoided, 
and  may  be  easily  brought  to  an  end." 

This  was  the  view  of  the  Sun^  which  had  just  passed 
under  the  control  of  Dana,  and  which  declared  the  im- 
peachment "far  too  serious  an  undertaking  for  the  facts 
and  evidence  in  the  case."  It  was  likewise  the  opinion 
of  the  Times,  which  asked:  "Must  the  President  be  pun- 
ished for  maintaining  the  authority  of  the  Constitution 
against  an  invalid  law?"  The  position  of  the  World 
had  its  humorous  aspects.  So  long  as  it  had  considered  ^ 
Johnson  a  Republican,  it  had  found  no  abuse  of  him  too 
violent.  Even  in  June,  1865,  it  had  called  him  "a  drunken 
boor,"  "an  insolent,  vulgar,  low-bred  brute,"  and  a  man 
"not  so  respectable  as  Caligula's  horse."  Now,  telling 
its  readers  that  Congress  was  attempting  to  remove  the 


332  THE  EVENING  POST 

President  "In  the  personal  interest  of  Edwin  M.  Stanton," 
it  could  not  be  sufficiently  impassioned  in  his  defense. 
Mayor  Hoffman  voiced  the  same  Democratic  sentiment 
in  saying  that  the  impeachers  of  Johnson  and  the  as- 
sassins of  Lincoln  would  be  equally  infamous  in  history. 

But  the  joy  of  the  Tribune  was  unbounded,  and  in  its 
references  to  the  President  it  ran  the  gamut  of  denuncia- 
tion, from  "the  Great  Accidency"  and  "this  bold,  bad, 
malignant  man"  to  "traitor."  Its  peroration  of  one 
ringing  column  editorial  is  a  gem  of  its  kind:  "He  is  an 
aching  tooth  in  the  national  jaw,  a  screeching  infant  in 
a  crowded  lecture  room;  and  there  can  be  no  peace  nor 
comfort  until  he  is  out."  The  Nation,  originally  opposed 
to  impeachment,  now  approved  it  with  only  less  gusto. 
Every  one  thought  Johnson  either  a  fool  or  a  knave,  its 
editor  wrote,  and  his  disappearance  from  the  national 
stage  would  be  a  heartfelt  relief  to  all.  Harper* s  Weekly, 
assailing  Johnson  for  treachery  to  the  party,  hoped  that 
he  would  sink  fast  and  forever  into  oblivion. 

A  contribution  to  calmness  in  the  first  moment  of  ex- 
citement was  made  by  the  Evening  Post  in  an  editorial 
entitled  "What  the  People  Think."  There  was  no  sus- 
tained perturbation,  it  believed;  that  sensitive  barometer, 
the  gold  market,  had  quickly  become  as  steady  as  ever. 
There  was  even  a  feeling  of  rehef.  Thinking  of  the 
solemnity  of  the  constitutional  process  of  impeachment, 
men  were  glad  that  the  vindictive  fight  between  the  Presi- 
dent and  Congress  "is  now  carried  out  of  the  political 
arena  and  into  a  higher  place."  The  general  public,  in- 
cluding many  Democrats,  held  that  the  President  had 
acted  wrongly,  even  if  not  in  a  degree  deserving  impeach- 
ment. But  every  one  was  saying  that  there  must  be  no 
violence,  and  the  trial  must  be  quick,  while  there  was  an 
equally  universal  hope  that,  whatever  its  outcome.  Con- 
gress would  emerge  with  its  fury  vented  and  in  a  more 
reasonable  state  of  mind. 

At  the  outset  the  Evening  Post  and  the  Times  were 
irritated  by  two  assertions  of  the  anti-Johnson  radicals. 
The  first  was  that  the  President  might  and  should  be 


RECONSTRUCTION  AND  IMPEACHMENT  333 

suspended  from  office  pending  the  outcome  of  the  trial. 
Not  only  was  there  no  constitutional  warrant  for  such 
action,  wrote  Bryant,  but  the  question  had  been  discussed 
in  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1787,  and  it  had 
voted  that  Congress  should  have  no  such  power  of  sus- 
pension. The  Tribune  held  also  that  if  the  Senate,  sit- 
ting as  a  High  Court  upon  the  President's  disobedience 
to  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act,  declared  the  act  unconstitu- 
tional, then  Its  decision  became  forever  binding.  The 
Supreme  Court  would  have  no  authority  to  pass  upon  the 
constitutionality  of  the  act,  and  If  it  presumed  to  do  so 
and  to  differ  from  the  High  Court,  Congress  would  be 
justified  In  Impeaching  or  removing  the  judges.  This  was 
too  much  for  the  Nation  as  well  as  the  Evening  Post,  and 
Godkin  promptly  demolished  the  assertion.  It  should 
be  said  that  Greeley  at  this  time  was  absent  in  the  West, 
and  the  Tribune  was  under  the  charge  of  John  Russell 
Young,  whose  harshness  Greeley  later  disapproved. 

On  Feb.  27,  three  days  after  the  impeachment,  the 
Evening  Post  declared  that  "the  general  impression  is 
that  the  case  is  essentially  prejudged,  and  that  Mr.  John- 
son will  be  removed  by  the  Senate."  This  was  the  opin- 
ion of  all  the  city's  organs,  from  the  radical  Nation  on 
the  one  side  to  the  World  on  the  other.  The  World,  in 
fact,  made  an  appeal  for  a  fund  of  $10,000,000,  with 
which  to  bribe  those  Senators  who  could  hardly  hope  for 
reelection  anyhow;  and  while  this  was  a  bit  of  humor — the 
Tribune  alone  took  It  seriously — Its  point  lay  in  the 
World's  conviction  that  the  Republican  Senators  were 
all  so  prejudiced  that  only  millions  could  win  over  a  few 
of  them.  Like  the  Nation,  the  Post  devoted  an  editorial 
to  a  scrutiny  of  the  qualifications  of  Benjamin  Wade, 
who  as  President  pro  tem.  of  the  Senate  would  succeed 
Johnson.  Bryant  admitted  Wade's  honesty,  courage,  and 
frankness,  but  regretted  that  in  impetuosity,  narrowness, 
and  prejudice  he  would  be  too  much  like  the  man  he 
replaced.  His  manners,  too,  must  be  mended,  for  he 
recalled  a  Scotch  lady's  remark:  "Our  Jock  sweers  awfu', 
but  nae  doot  it's  a  great  set-off  to  conversation." 


334  THE  EVENING  POST 

As  the  trial  progressed  the  Evening  Post  was  gratified 
to  find  that  the  case  was  much  less  nearly  prejudged  than 
it  had  supposed.  Disappointed  by  the  lack  of  eloquence 
on  both  sides,  it  was  pleased  by  the  efficiency  of  Evarts, 
Stanbery,  and  others  of  the  President's  counsel  in  dis- 
playing the  strength  of  their  case.  They  made  it  plain 
that  Johnson's  intention  in  dismissing  Stanton  had  not 
been  to  defy  Congress  and  the  law  wantonly,  but  to  ob- 
tain a  judicial  test  of  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act.  They 
showed  also  that  some  anti-Johnson  Senators  had,  while 
the  Act  was  pending,  expounded  the  view  that  it  did  not 
protect  men  held  over  from  Lincoln's  Cabinet,  like  Stan- 
ton. The  Post  on  April  22  credited  the  Senate  with  hav- 
ing dealt  fairly  with  the  accused  and  having  admitted  all 
the  evidence  in  his  favor. 

The  breakdown  of  the  case  against  Johnson  was  gall 
and  wormwood  to  the  more  bitter  newspaper  partisans  of 
Congress.  Theodore  Tilton's  Independent  read  Chief 
Justice  Chase,  who  impartially  presided  over  the  trial, 
out  of  the  party.  The  Tribune  was  trembling  for  "the 
very  existence  of  the  government."  Never  noted  for 
gentleness  of  retort,  it  now  accused  Horatio  Seymour  of 
"gigantic,  deliberate,  atrocious  lies";  the  Herald  of 
"falsehoods";  the  World  of  "dodges  and  prevarica- 
tions"; and  the  Times  and  Post  again  of  being  "copper- 
head." The  Times  remonstrated.  Pointing  out  that 
Greeley  was  to  preside  at  the  Dickens  dinner,  as  the  rep- 
resentative of  the  American  press,  it  said  that  he  should 
remember  that  it  was  not  in  the  dignity  of  a  gentleman 
to  use  the  word  "liar."  Greeley  replied  that  the  truth 
was  not  a  question  of  taste,  but  of  flat  morality,  and  that 
he  would  never  be  mealy-mouthed  in  its  defense. 

The  seven  Republican  Senators  who  finally  determined 
to  vote  against  conviction  were  Fessenden,  Lyman  Trum- 
bull, Henderson,  Fowler,  Van  Winkle,  Grimes,  and  Ross. 
It  is  the  belief  of  all  later  historians  that  their  courageous 
and  just  action  is  one  of  the  finest  episodes  of  the  sordid 
reconstruction  period.    But  a  storm  of  anger  broke  upon 


RECONSTRUCTION  AND  IMPEACHMENT   335 

them  In  Washington.  It  was  on  May  16  that  the  voting 
began.  Four  days  earlier  the  Tribune,  flying  into  a  panic, 
declared  that  a  hundred  men  had  been  under  pay  in 
Washington  since  the  trial  began  to  cry  down  impeach- 
ment and  bet  against  conviction.  It  accused  Lyman 
Trumbull  of  being  to  blame,  and  insinuated  that  his 
motives  were  venal:  ''but  a  few  weeks  ago  he  was  paid 
$5,000  for  arguing  the  constitutionality  of  the  Recon- 
struction laws.  .  .  .  Republicans  ask  to-night  what  the 
guerdon  is  for  defending  the  President  in  the  impeach- 
ment trial."  Let  President  Johnson,  the  incarnation 
of  Treason  and  Slavery,  be  acquitted,  it  added,  and  he 
becomes  King;  as  yet  he  could  be  removed  by  law,  but 
''your  next  attempt  will  be  a  revolution."  Next  day,  May 
13,  the  Tribune  headed  an  editorial  attack  upon  Senator 
Grimes,  who  had  defended  Johnson,  "Judas's  Thirty  Rea- 
sons," and  concluded:  "We  have  had  Benedict  Arnold, 
Aaron  Burr,  Jefferson  Davis,  and  now  we  have  James  W. 
Grimes!"  It  categorically  accused  Senator  Fowler  of 
accepting  a  bribe,  and  it  called  Henderson  and  Ross 
suspect. 

Perhaps  the  best  retort  was  that  of  the  Times,  in  an 
editorial  debating  the  question  who  was  the  most  colossal 
criminal  of  the  century,  and  concluding  that  Senator  Ross 
closely  resembled  Sennacherib.  But  a  serious  answer  was 
necessary,  and  a  dozen  Indignant  journals,  including  the 
Nation  and  Harper^ s  Weekly,  replied  to  this  temporarily 
misguided  oracle  of  a  half-million  readers.  The  Posfs 
editorial  of  May  13  was  headed,  "Coercing  a  Court"; 
and  in  It  and  an  editorial  of  the  next  day  it  graphically 
described  the  pressure  brought  to  bear  upon  the  Inde- 
pendent Senators,  and  condemned  the  attacks  against 
them  as  undermining  both  the  impartiality  of  judicial 
tribunals,  and  the  principle  that  an  accused  man  shall  be 
believed  innocent  until  proved  guilty.  It  anticipated  the 
verdict  of  history: 

With  whom  is  the  sober  second  thought  of  the  people  most 
likely  to  agree — with  the  Tribune  and  Gen.  Butler,  or  with  such 


336  THE  EVENING  POST 

men  as  Trumbull,  Grimes,  Fessenden,  and  Henderson?  It  is 
plain  that  these  gentlemen  perform  a  duty  in  many  ways  painful 
to  themselves;  they  are  driven  reluctantly  to  act  in  opposition  to 
their  own  wishes ;  their  verdict  is  given  in  favor  of  a  man  whom 
they  consider  unwise,  and  whose  occupancy  of  the  Presidential 
chair  they  believe  has  brought  evils  upon  the  country.  Is  it  not 
honorable  to  them  that  their  sense  of  justice  and  duty  impels  them 
to  disappoint  the  demands  of  their  party? 

A  scene  of  eager  excitement  and  tension  presented  itself 
outside  the  office  of  every  evening  newspaper  in  New  York 
on  May  i6,  crowds  packing  the  space  before  the  bulletin 
boards.  The  vote  was  thirty-five  for  conviction  and  nine- 
teen for  acquittal,  or  one  less  than  the  number  needed  to 
depose  the  President.  The  Evening  Post  was  outraged 
by  the  fact  that  the  first  vote  was  taken  on  the  eleventh 
impeachment  article,  that  being  considered  the  strongest 
and  the  impeachment  managers  fearing  the  moral  effect 
of  a  defeat  on  the  weak  early  articles;  and  by  the  Senate's 
immediate  adjournment  for  ten  days,  which  the  Post 
believed  a  maneuver  to  permit  more  pressure  to  be 
brought  upon  the  seven  Independent  Senators.  "The 
verdict  of  acquittal  gives  general  satisfaction,"  it  said; 
*'it  is  felt  that  a  conviction,  under  the  circumstances, 
would  have  had  no  moral  force,  and  would  only  have 
injured  the  party.  .  .  ."  Like  every  other  decent  organ, 
it  condemned  as  "disgraceful"  Senator  Wade's  vote 
against  Johnson  and  In  favor  of  his  own  elevation  to  the 
Presidency,  cast  at  a  time  when  he  and  others  believed 
that  a  single  ballot  would  sway  the  Issue.  For  that  act  the 
public  never  quite  forgave  Wade. 

The  Times,  Herald,  and  World  equally  rejoiced  In  the 
acquittal,  and  the  Sun  accepted  it  with  a  milder  approval. 
The  Nation  found  "several  reasons"  for  regretting  it, 
and  the  Tribune  was  Inconsolable.  But  the  anger  of  the 
radicals  was  more  Intense  than  long-lived.  In  1884  one 
of  the  editors  of  the  Evening  Post,  Horace  White,  was 
attending    the    Chicago    Convention    which    nominated 


RECONSTRUCTION  AND  IMPEACHMENT   337 

Blaine.  The  name  of  ex-Senator  Henderson  was  re- 
ported for  the  permanent  chairmanship.  "The  as- 
sembled multitude,"  wrote  White,  "knew  at  once  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  nomination,  and  gave  cheer  after  cheer 
of  applause  and  approval.  It  was  the  sign  that  all  was 
forgiven  on  both  sides." 


CHAPTER  FIFTEEN 

BRYANT  AT  THE  HEIGHT  OF  HIS  FAME  AS  EDITOR 

During  all  but  the  hottest  months  of  the  year,  In  the 
latter  part  of  Grant's  second  Administration,  men  on 
lower  Broadway  at  about  8  145  every  week-day  morning 
might  see  a  venerable  figure  come  rapidly  down  toward 
Fulton  Street.  The  aged  pedestrian  was  slender  and  just 
above  the  middle  height,  but  was  given  an  impressive 
aspect  by  his  heavy  white  beard  and  the  long  hoary  hair 
that  swept  his  shoulders.  As  he  passed.  It  could  be  seen 
that  his  brow  was  bald;  that  his  forehead  was  projecting, 
though  not  massive;  that  the  deep-set  eyes  which  peered 
from  beneath  his  bushy  brows  were  remarkably  pene- 
trating and  observant,  and  that  his  features  were  rugged 
but  benignant.  He  had  a  scholar's  stoop,  but  appeared 
wiry  and  vigorous  far  beyond  his  years.  People  glanced 
at  him  with  respectful  recognition — his  was,  as  Tennyson 
said  of  Wellington,  the  good  gray  head  that  all  men 
knew.  On  Fulton  Street  he  turned  into  a  tall,  new  build- 
ing, and  those  who  watched  might  see  that,  disdaining  the 
elevator,  he  began  rapidly  climbing  the  stairs.  This  was 
William  CuUen  Bryant,  at  eighty  still  devoting  four  hours 
daily  to  the  Evening  Post. 

Bryant  had  long  since  become  the  most  distinguished 
resident  of  the  city,  referred  to  and  honored  as  Its  first 
citizen.  In  civic,  charitable,  and  social  movements  his 
name  was  given  precedence  over  those  of  men  like  Wil- 
liam M.  Evarts  or  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  On  every  great 
public  occasion  an  effort  was  made  to  obtain  his  attend- 
ance as  the  representative  of  all  that  was  choicest  in  lit- 
erary, artistic,  and  professional  life.  When  the  artist 
Cole,  and  the  authors  Cooper,  Irving,  Verplanck,  and 
Halleck  died,  he  was  chosen  to  deliver  memorial  dis- 
courses of  that  kind  in  which  the  French  excel;   he  was 

338 


BRYANT  AS  EDITOR  339 

the  chief  speaker  at  the  dedication  of  the  Morse,  Shakes- 
peare, Scott,  Goethe,  and  Mazzini  monuments  in  Central 
Park;  and  he  presided  over  the  testimonial  benefit  given 
Charlotte  Cushman  when  she  was  about  to  retire  from 
the  stage,  which  occasioned  one  of  the  most  notable  as- 
semblages ever  brought  into  a  modern  theater.  No  New 
York  meeting  in  behalf  of  free  trade,  sound  money,  or 
civil  service  reform  was  complete  without  his  presence 
or  a  message  from  him.  This  high  position  was  his  be- 
cause he  was  not  merely  a  great  poet,  but  a  great  publicist. 
On  Nov.  5,  1864,  when  Bryant  had  just  attained  his 
seventieth  birthday,  a  celebration  was  held  at  the  Cen- 
tury Club,  of  which  he  had  been  one  of  the  earliest  mem- 
bers. The  historian  Bancroft  presided,  and  among  the 
speakers  were  Emerson,  Holmes,  R.  H.  Stoddard,  Julia 
Ward  Howe,  R.  H.  Dana,  jr.,  and  WiUiam  M.  Evarts; 
while  poems  were  received  from  Whittier  and  Lowell. 
The  editor  as  well  as  the  poet  was  honored.  Mrs.  Howe 
recited : 

...   at  his  forge  he  wrought  two-fold, 

On  the  iron  shield  of  freedom,  and  the  poet's  links  of  gold. 

while  Lowell's  well-known  verses,  "On  Board  the  Sev- 
enty-six," referred  to  his  editorial  words  of  cheer  during 
the  gloomy  early  days  of  the  Civil  War.  A  little  more 
than  three  years  later  (Jan.  30,  1868),  a  dinner  was 
tendered  Bryant  at  Delmonico's  as  president  of  the 
American  Free  Trade  League.  Speeches  were  made  in 
his  honor  by  David  Dudley  Field,  Parke  Godwin,  John  D. 
Van  Buren,  and  others,  and  letters  read  from  Emerson 
and  Gerrit  Smith.  Again,  on  Nov.  3,  1874,  when  Bryant 
became  eighty  years  old,  he  was  quietly  finishing  a  fore- 
noon's work  in  the  Evening  Post  office  when  a  deputation 
of  friends  entered  to  congratulate  him.  That  evening 
there  was  another  celebration  at  the  Century  Club,  at 
which  a  commemorative  vase — now  in  the  Metropolitan 
Museum — was  given  Bryant,  while  a  simultaneous  cele- 
bration was  held  in  Chicago  by  the  Literary  Club  of 
that  city. 


340  THE  EVENING  POST 

In  the  dozen  years  following  Sumter,  and  especially  In 
the  Civil  War  years  when  It  pressed  Its  demand  for  ener- 
getic prosecution  of  the  struggle,  the  Evening  Post  was 
at  the  height  of  Its  Influence  under  Bryant.  "The  clear 
and  able  political  leaders  have  been  of  more  service  to  the 
government  In  this  war  than  some  of  Its  armies,"  said 
LittelVs  Living  Age  In  1862.  Charles  Dudley  Warner 
wrote  at  the  same  time  In  the  Hartford  Press :  "The 
Evening  Post  Is  the  most  fearless  and  rigidly  honest  paper 
In  the  country,  and  Its  ability  Is  equal  to  Its  moral  worth. 
Some  of  Its  ordinary  editorials  are  magnificent  specimens 
of  English."  A  chorus  of  praise  was  aroused  by  the  en- 
largement of  the  journal  this  year.  ^^The  Evening  Post, 
we  think.  Is  the  best  newspaper  In  the  United  States," 
remarked  the  Elmlra  Advertiser;  the  New  Bedford 
Standard  spoke  of  "the  best  paper  In  the  United  States, 
the  Evening  Post^^;  the  Kennebec  Journal  said  that  "All 
things  considered.  It  comes  the  nearest  to  our  Idea  of  what 
a  metropolitan  journal  should  be  of  any  publication  In 
the  country";  and  the  Christian  Enquirer  testified  that 
"the  course  of  the  Evening  Post  during  the  war  has  been 
above  all  praise — firm,  bold,  patriotic,  and  wise." 

Similar  tributes  were  paid  the  newspaper  by  a  remark- 
able array  of  public  men.  In  1840  James  K.  Paulding 
wrote  from  Washington  to  console  It  for  defeat  In  the 
Presidential  election :  "The  manner  In  which  the  Evening 
Post  is  conducted,  Its  stern  and  sober  dignity,  and  its  free- 
dom from  the  base  fury  and  still  baser  falsehoods,  with 
which  so  many  newspapers  are  debauched  and  disgraced, 
makes  me  proud  to  remember  that  I  have  a  humble  claim 
to  be  associated  with  its  honors."  Sumner  was  constant 
In  his  praise  In  the  fifties.  Judge  William  Kent,  son  of 
the  great  Chancellor,  not  merely  thought  it  the  best 
American  daily,  but  In  1857  proposed  that  he  purchase  a 
share  In  It  and  become  one  of  the  editors,  a  proposal 
which  Isaac  Henderson  discouraged.  William  Jay  In 
1862  wrote  Bryant,  paying  tribute  to  Its  "powerful  and 
beneficial  influence."  Charles  Eliot  Norton  begged  the 
following  year  "to  express  my  hearty  sympathy  with  the 


BRYANT  AS  EDITOR  34i 

principles  maintained  by  the  Evening  Post  at  this  time, 
and  my  admiration  for  the  ability  with  which  they  are  sus- 
tained." A  little  later  Lowell  wrote  Bryant  that  he  was 
a  subscriber.  ''I  am  particularly  pleased  with  the  course 
of  the  Evening  Post  on  reconstruction.  Firmness  equally 
tempered  with  good  feeling  Is  what  we  want — not  gen- 
erosity with  twitches  of  firmness  now  and  then."  W.  H. 
Furness,  the  noted  Philadelphia  minister,  sent  another 
unsolicited  tribute  In  the  heat  of  the  war,  saying  that  he 
valued  the  Tribune,  but  was  particularly  grateful  for  the 
sound,  calm  vision  of  the  Evening  Post,  and  that  "It 
stands  in  my  esteem  at  the  head  of  the  American  press. 
It  is  cheering  that  there  Is  abroad  such  an  educator  of 
the  public  mind."     Caleb  Gushing  wrote   (1868)  : 

You  may  regard  it  as  quite  superfluous  for  me  to  speak  in  com- 
mendation of  the  Evening  Post;  but  inasmuch  as,  at  one  period,  I 
had  reason  to  think  and  to  assert  that  its  language  was  occasionally 
overharsh  to  me,  I  desire  to  say,  for  my  own  satisfaction,  not 
yours,  with  how  great  instruction  and  pleasure  at  present  I  read 
it  every  day,  and  with  what  daily  increasing  estimation  of  its 
superior  dignity,  fairness,  wisdom,  and  truth. 

Even  abroad  the  paper  was  well  known.  Bigelow  In- 
formed Bryant  In  1864  that  an  Englishman  had  told  him 
he  thought  It  the  best  newspaper  in  the  world.  John 
Stuart  Mill  wrote  Parke  Godwin  the  following  year  that 
he  was  a  regular  reader  of  it  through  the  kindness  of 
Frederick  Barnard,  later  President  of  Columbia,  who 
thought  It  the  best  American  daily,  and  that  he  had 
formed  a  high  opinion  of  it. 

If  we  ask  what  qualities  made  Bryant  a  great  editor, 
we  must  place  mere  industry  high  on  the  list.  Within  a 
few  years  after  his  return  to  the  prostrate  Post  In  1836 
he  had  shaken  off  his  distaste  for  the  profession,  and  ac- 
quired a  zest  for  it.  From  1836  to  1866  he  labored  as 
hard  upon  his  journal  as  If  he  had  never  written  a  line  of 
verse — as  the  hardworking  Greeley  and  Bennett  did 
upon  theirs.  Always  up  In  summer  at  five.  In  winter  at 
five-thirty,  he  was  frequently  at  his  desk  at  seven,  and 


342  THE  EVENING  POST 

seldom  later  than  eight.  His  principal  concern,  the  edito- 
rial page,  was  In  itself  a  day's  work.  He  took  In  hand 
during  this  period  nearly  all  the  leading  editorials.  They 
were  consistently  longer  than  editorials  of  to-day,  not  In- 
frequently in  the  fifties  and  sixties  reaching  i,6oo  words, 
sometimes  i,8oo;  and  Bryant,  conscious  of  his  reputation, 
wrote  with  painful  care.  "As  Dr.  Johnson  said  of  his 
talk,"  he  once  told  BIgelow,  "I  always  write  my  best.** 

But  In  his  first  forty  years  as  editor  Bryant  also  at- 
tended to  a  multitude  of  business  and  executive  details. 
This  was  of  course  true  In  the  thirties  and  forties,  when 
the  Evening  Post  was  a  struggling  journal  with  a  staii  of 
three  or  four  writers;  but  his  unpublished  papers  show 
it  almost  equally  true  later.  In  his  late  fifties  we  find 
him  carefully  discussing  by  letter  with  John  BIgelow 
whether  the  commercial  reporter  should  get  more  than 
$900  a  year;  hiring  the  foreign  correspondents,  and  re- 
sentful when  the  Tribune  stole  one  of  the  best,  SIgnora 
Jesse  White  Mario;  and  taking  a  keen  interest  in  the 
fluctuations  of  advertising.  We  find  him  complaining  of 
the  dally  squabble  between  the  editorial  room  and  adver- 
tising department,  with  the  sturdy  German  head  of  the 
composing  room,  Henry  DIthmar,  parrying  all  attempts 
to  displace  advertisements  by  reading  matter  (i860). 
He  was  laying  plans  as  the  Civil  War  storm  arose  to  get 
out  a  third  edition,  to  occupy  the  same  ground  as  the 
third  edition  of  the  Express,  and  considering  ways  and 
means  of  putting  the  first  edition  on  the  street  in  time  to 
beat  the  Commercial.  He  kept  a  watchful  eye  upon  all 
employees,  now  meting  out  praise  and  blame  to  the 
Washington  and  Albany  correspondents,  and  now  de- 
ciding Indulgently  what  should  be  done  with  an  office  boy 
who  was  caught  carrying  of[  a  dozen  review  copies  of 
new  books.  When  it  grew  necessary  to  enlarge  the  Post 
he  knew  just  what  It  would  cost  to  alter  the  "turtles," 
and  just  why  the  Importers  and  wholesalers  preferred  a 
journal  of  four  blanket-size  pages  to  one  of  eight  smaller 
pages. 

He  had  to  answer  an  enormous  correspondence,  a  task 


BRYANT  AS  EDITOR  343 

conscientiously  performed.  A  hurried  message  to  Dlth- 
mar  Is  preserved:  "Enclosed  is  the  lady's  communica- 
tion. I  have  looked  two  hours  for  It.  Put  It  in  and  get 
me  out  of  trouble."  He  received  a  multitude  of  visitors. 
A  note  to  his  wife  in  185 1  remarks,  "I  was  run  down 
yesterday" — arriving  to  write  a  leader,  he  had  been  in- 
terrupted by  five  Important  and  several  lesser  visitors. 
Sometimes  the  burden  upon  him  was  excessive.  It  was 
so  after  1836,  just  before  Bigelow  came  in  the  late  for- 
ties, and  at  intervals  later,  such  as  early  in  i860,  when 
Bigelow  was  in  Europe,  Thayer  was  sick,  Godwin  was 
laid  up  with  rheumatic  fever,  and  Bryant  had  a  sty  into 
the  bargain. 

His  Industry  was  made  possible  by  the  fact  that  he  had 
an  admirable  constitution,  which  he  was  at  pains  to  pre- 
serve, and  by  his  wise  insistence  upon  recreation.  In  his 
early  manhood  he  was  a  vegetarian.  A  letter  of  1871 
describing  his  mode  of  life  shows  by  what  a  careful  regi- 
men he  preserved  his  bodily  and  mental  vigor.  He  still 
rose  between  four-thirty  and  five-thirty,  according  to  sea- 
son. While  half-dressed,  he  spent  a  half  hour  in  calis- 
thenics with  a  pair  of  dumbbells,  a  light  pole,  a  horizontal 
bar,  and  a  chair.  After  bathing,  he  breakfasted  on  some 
cereal — hominy,  wheat  grits,  or  oatmeal — and  milk,  with 
baked  apples  in  summer,  and  sometimes  buckwheat  cakes. 
He  never  touched  tea  or  coffee.  After  breakfast,  when 
in  town,  he  walked  three  miles  down  to  the  Evening  Post 
office,  and  doing  his  morning's  work,  returned,  "always 
walking,  whatever  be  the  weather  or  the  state  of  the 
streets."  In  the  country  he  divided  his  time  between 
literary  work  and  outdoor  employments.  When  in  the 
city  he  made  but  two  meals  a  day,  and  in  the  country 
three,  although  the  middle  meal  consisted  only  of  a  little 
bread  and  butter,  with  possibly  some  fruit;  the  meat  or 
fish  that  he  took  at  dinner  was  in  very  sparing  quantities. 
In  later  manhood  he  made  it  a  rule  to  avoid  every  kind 
of  literary  occupation  in  the  evening,  finding  that  it  inter- 
fered with  his  sleep;  while  he  went  to  bed  in  town  as 
early  as  ten,  and  in  the  country  still  earlier.     A  short 


344  THE  EVENING  POST 

time  before  his  death,  when  he  was  eighty-three,  Bigelow 
asked  him  if  he  had  not  reduced  his  period  of  morning 
gymnastics.  "Not  the  width  of  your  thumb-nail,"  was 
his  reply. 

Bryant  found  his  most  congenial  recreation  not  In  the 
theater  or  society,  but  country  employments.  When 
youth  passed  Into  middle  age  he  still  liked  all-day  or 
week-end  rambles  up  the  Hudson  or  in  the  Catskills. 
After  the  purchase  of  his  Roslyn  home  in  1842  he  seldom 
failed,  from  April  to  October,  to  spend  two  or  three  days 
a  week  resting,  gardening,  draining,  planning,  and  writing 
there.  His  most  charming  letters  show  him  visiting  his 
pigs  and  chickens,  picking  strawberries,  treating  children 
to  his  cherries,  superintending  the  pruning,  and  bathing 
In  the  Sound  when  the  tide  met  the  grass. 

The  editor  viewed  his  calling  as  a  jealous  mistress,  de- 
clining all  suggestions  of  public  office  or  any  other  diver- 
sion from  it.  In  1861  It  was  rumored  that  Lincoln 
wished  to  appoint  him  Minister  to  Spain,  and  the  Post 
promptly  disposed  of  the  suggestion  that  he  would  ac- 
cept. "Those  who  are  acquainted  with  Mr.  Bryant 
know,"  it  said,  "that  there  Is  no  public  office  from  that 
of  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States  downward  which 
he  would  not  regard  it  as  a  misfortune  to  take.  They 
know  that  he  has  expected  no  offer  of  any  post  from  the 
government,  and  would  take  none  If  offered."  Grant  also 
would  have  given  him  an  important  diplomatic  position 
had  he  been  ready  to  receive  it.  In  1872  it  was  thought 
necessary  to  publish  the  following  tactful 

CARD  FROM  MR.  BRYANT 

Certain  journals  of  this  city  have  lately  spoken  of  me  as  one 
ambitious  of  being  nominated  for  the  Presidency  of  the  United 
States.  The  idea  is  absurd  enough,  not  only  on  account  of  my 
advanced  age,  but  of  my  unfitness  in  various  respects  for  the  labors 
of  so  eminent  a  post.  I  do  not,  however,  object  to  the  discussion 
of  my  deficiencies  on  any  other  ground  than  that  it  is  altogether 
superfluous,  since  it  is  impossible  that  I  should  receive  any  formal 


BRYANT  AS  EDITOR  345 

nomination,   and   equally   impossible,    if   it   were   offered,    that    I 
should  commit  the  folly  of  accepting  it. 

New  York,  July  8,  1872.  wm.  c.  bryant. 

He  avoided  those  controversial  by-ways  into  which 
Greeley,  as  In  his  debate  with  Henry  J.  Raymond  upon 
Socialism,  so  eagerly  rushed.  In  i860  the  country's  fore- 
most economist,  Henry  C.  Carey,  challenged  him  to  a 
joint  discussion  of  the  tariff,  and  the  Post  replied  that 
Bryant  never  accepted  such  invitations.  "His  duties  as 
a  journalist  and  a  commentator  on  the  events  of  the  day 
and  the  various  Interesting  questions  which  they  suggest, 
leave  him  no  time  for  a  sparring  match  with  Mr.  Carey 
.  .  .;  and  he  has  no  ambition  to  distinguish  himself  as  a 
public  disputant.  His  business  Is  to  enforce  Important 
political  truths,  and  to  refute  what  seem  to  him  errors, 
just  as  the  occasions  arise.  ..."  A  time  more  malapro- 
pos for  a  long  tariff  debate  could  hardly  have  been 
selected. 

It  was  part  of  Bryant's  creed  that  the  profession  to 
which  he  devoted  his  life  should  be  treated  as  one  of 
elevated  dignity.  When  he  died  the  Associated  Press 
declared.  In  the  preamble  to  its  resolutions  of  respect, 
that  "he  redeemed,  as  far  as  one  man  could  do  so,  the 
journalism  of  his  early  days  from  the  offensive  practice 
of  personal  discussion,  often  ending  in  duels,  and  at  times 
In  death,  and  placed  It  upon  the  broad  foundation  of  that 
tolerance  for  others  which  Is  inseparable  from  free  dis- 
cussion and  true  self-respect."  In  1837  a  hare-brained 
fellow  named  Holland,  connected  with  a  short-lived 
journal  called  the  Times,  challenged  him  to  a  duel  be- 
cause he  had  asserted  that  the  Times  was  a  mere  tool  in 
the  hands  of  Senator  Nathaniel  P.  Tallmadge.  Bryant 
pocketed  the  challenge,  and  told  Its  bearer  that  every- 
thing must  take  its  turn;  that  Holland  had  already  been 
termed  a  scoundrel  by  Leggett,  and  he  could  not  take  up 
the  new  quarrel  till  the  old  one  was  settled.  Year  by 
year  the  Evening  Post  refused  to  be  drawn  into  offensive 
personalities.  In  1832,  when  the  Courier  and  Enquirer 
assailed  it,  Bryant  wrote  that  "we  shall  never  so  far  lose 


346  THE  EVENING  POST 

sight  of  a  proper  sense  of  our  own  dignity,  or  of  respect 
for  our  readers,  as  to  make  incidents  in  the  private  life 
of  any  political  opponent  a  subject  of  discussion  or  re- 
proach." Ten  years  later  he  was  about  to  reply  to  an 
article  in  the  Plebeian,  but  on  looking  at  it  a  second  time, 
"we  were  repelled  from  our  purpose  by  the  personalities 
which  it  contains."  In  1863  a  scurrilous  attack  on  Bige- 
low  and  Thayer  by  the  TVorld  drew  the  same  curt  state- 
ment. 

How  scrupulous  Bryant  was  in  his  fifty  years'  editor- 
ship two  incidents  will  illustrate.  In  the  spring  of  1859 
a  bill  was  pending  at  Albany  to  increase  the  compensa- 
tion paid  for  legal  advertisements,  which  was  unfairly 
low.  All  the  newspapers  urged  it,  and  the  Evening  Posfs 
correspondent,  one  Wilder,  proved  a  perfect  Hercules 
of  a  lobbyist.  "Yet,"  Bryant  wrote  Bigelow,  "I  was  un- 
comfortable all  the  while  at  the  idea  of  having  a  bill 
before  the  Legislature  from  which,  if  it  passed,  I  would 
derive  a  personal  advantage,  and  I  was  quite  relieved 
when  I  saw  that  it  was  defeated."  Some  years  earlier 
the  London  Examiner  published  a  complimentary  article 
regarding  Bigelow's  book  upon  Jamaica,  of  which  he  had 
about  a  hundred  copies  that  he  was  eager  to  sell.  He 
asked  Bryant  if  he  would  be  guilty  of  an  impropriety  in 
republishing  the  notice.  "No,"  Bryant  said  hesitatingly, 
looking  up  from  his  desk,  "no,  not  as  the  world  goes." 
"But,"  persisted  Bigelow,  "how  as  the  Evening  Post 
goes?"  "Why,"  rejoined  the  poet,  "I  never  did  such  a 
thing.  I  have  had  a  good  many  pleasant  things  said 
about  me,  but  I  never  republished  one  of  them  in  the 
Evening  Post.'*  It  need  not  be  said  that  Bigelow  aban- 
doned his  plan. 

Bryant  brought  to  his  editorship  a  culture  such  as 
American  journalism  had  not  seen  before,  and  has  not 
since  seen  surpassed.  A  writer  in  Eraser's  Magazine  in 
1855  niade  sport  of  the  ignorance  of  American  news- 
papers. He  cited  the  Herald's  statement,  in  a  criticism 
of  Racine's  "Phedre,"  that  "the  language  is  written  in 
what  we  call  blank  verse";  and  its  translation  of  a  tag 


BRYANT  AS  EDITOR  347 

from  Virgil:  *'Adsum  qui  feci;  he  or  me  must  perish." 
His  sweeping  criticism  was  unjust  to  a  profession  which 
already  enlisted  men  like  Richard  Hildreth,  Richard 
Grant  White,  and  George  Ripley,  but  Bryant,  with  his 
international  reputation,  was  the  most  shining  exception 
to  it.  His  readers  thought  nothing  of  seeing  an  editorial 
on  the  United  States  Bank  begin  with  an  allusion  to  the 
episode  of  Nisus  and  Euryalus  in  Virgil,  some  story 
drawn  from  the  legal  lore  he  had  mastered  at  the  bar, 
or  an  apt  quotation  from  the  wide  range  of  English 
poetry.  His  allusions  and  illustrations  were  always  deft. 
"Like  the  misshapen  dwarf  in  the  'Lay  of  the  Last 
Minstrel,'  "  he  said  of  the  anti-Jacksonians  in  1833,  "they 
wave  their  lean  arms  on  high  and  run  to  and  fro  cry- 
ing, 'Lost!  Lost!  Lost!'  "  When  Cass  objected  to  any 
"temporary"  measures  regarding  slavery  in  the  terri- 
tories, Bryant  simply  retold  the  story  of  Swift's  servant, 
who  did  not  clean  his  master's  shoes  because  they  would 
soon  be  dirty  again;  whereupon  the  Dean  punished  him 
by  making  him  go  without  breakfast,  because  he  would 
soon  be  hungry  again. 

The  editor  read  assiduously.  His  wide  acquaintance 
with  the  most  intellectual  men  of  New  York  kept  him 
conversant  with  the  latest  ideas  in  every  field.  Above 
all,  at  a  time  when  few  journalists  went  abroad,  his  many 
trips  to  Europe  supplied  him  with  a  constant  fund  of  sug- 
gestions for  civic  and  other  improvements.  These  ranged 
from  penny  postage  to  street  cleaning  machines,  from 
apartment  houses  to  police  uniforms,  and  from  Central 
Park  to  the  nickel  five-cent  piece,  which,  in  imitation  of 
a  German  coin,  he  was  one  of  the  first  to  advocate. 

Bryant's  insistence  upon  purity  of  diction  was  such 
that  John  Bigelow  believed  thaF~in  all  his  writings  for 
the  Post  fewer  blemishes  could  be  found  than  in  the  first 
ten  numbers  of  the  Spectator.  His  sensitiveness  as  to  lit- 
erary form  was  fully  developed  when  he  joined  the  paper. 
On  May  11,  1827,  he  published  in  it  a  paragraph  on 
affectations  of  expression,  condemning  such  barbarisms 
in  current  newspapers  as  "consolate."    The  most  famous 


348  THE  EVENING  POST 

evidence  of  his  love  of  precision  was  his  index  expurga- 
torius.  This  was  less  extensive  than  it  was  sometimes 
represented  to  be,  containing  but  eighty-six  words  or 
phrases;  and  as  Bryant  told  George  Gary  Eggleston,  it 
was  for  the  guidance  only  of  immature  staff  writers,  and 
might  sometimes  be  overstepped.  It  includes  inflated 
words  like  inaugurate  for  begin,  misemployed  words  like 
mutual  for  common,  and  along  with  some  terms  now  used 
without  hesitation,  others  universally  condemned : 

Above  and  over  (for  more  than)  ;  Artiste  (for  artist)  ;  As- 
pirant; Authoress;  Beat  (for  defeat)  ;  Bagging  (for  capturing)  ; 
Balance  (for  remainder)  ;  Banquet  (for  dinner  or  supper)  ;  Bogus; 
Casket  (for  coffin)  ;  Claimed  (for  asserted)  ;  Commence  (for  be- 
gin) ;  Collided;  Compete;  Cortege  (for  procession);  Cotem- 
porary  (for  contemporary)  ;  Couple  (for  two)  ;  Darkey  (for 
negro)  ;  Day  before  yesterday  (for  the  day  before  yesterday)  ; 
Debut;  Decease;  Democracy  (applied  to  a  political  party);  De- 
velop (for  expose)  ;  Devouring  element  (for  fire)  ;  Donate;  Em- 
ployee; Enacted  (for  acted)  ;  Endorse  (for  approve)  ;  En  Route; 
"Esq.";  Graduate  (for  is  graduated);  Gents  (for  gentlemen); 
Hon.  House  (for  House  of  Representatives)  ;  Humbug;  Inau- 
gurate (for  begin)  ;  In  our  midst;  Item  (for  particle,  extract,  or 
paragraph)  ;  Is  being  done,  and  all  passives  of  this  form;  Jeop- 
ardise; Jubilant  (for  rejoicing)  ;  Juvenile  (for  boy)  ;  Lady  (for 
wife)  ;  Last  (for  latest)  ;  Lengthy  (for  long)  ;  Leniency  (for  len- 
ity) ;  Loafer;  Loan  or  loaned  (for  lend  or  lent)  ;  Located;  Ma- 
jority (relating  to  places  or  circumstances,  for  most)  ;  Mrs.  Presi- 
dent, Mrs.  Governor,  Mrs.  General,  and  all  similar  titles ;  Mutual 
(for  common);  Official  (for  officer);  Ovation;  On  yesterday; 
Over  his  signature;  Pants  (for  pantaloons)  ;  Parties  (for  persons)  ; 
Partially  (for  partly)  ;  Past  two  weeks  (for  last  two  weeks,  and 
all  similar  expressions  relating  to  a  definite  time)  ;  Poetess;  Por- 
tion (for  part)  ;  Posted  (for  informed)  ;  Progress  (for  advance)  ; 
Quite  (prefixed  to  good,  large,  etc.)  ;  Raid  (for  attack)  ;  Realized 
(for  obtained)  ;  Reliable  (for  trustworthy)  ;  Rendition  (for  per- 
formance) ;  Repudiate  (for  reject)  ;  Retire  (as  an  active  verb)  ; 
Rev.  (for  the  Rev.)  ;  Role  (for  part)  ;  Roughs;  Rowdies;  Secesh; 
Sensation  (for  noteworthy  event)  ;  Standpoint  (for  point  of 
view)  ;  Start  (in  the  sense  of  setting  out)  ;  State  (for  say)  ;  Tal- 
ent (for  talents  or  ability);  Talented;  Tapis;  The  deceased; 
War  (for  dispute). 


BRYANT  AS  EDITOR  349 

Bryant  was  frequently  called  upon  to  decide  nice  ques- 
tions of  English,  which  he  did  with  care ;  during  the  Civil 
War  he  took  time,  in  answer  to  a  query  regarding  the 
superlative,  to  dig  up  ancient  Instances  like  Milton's  "vlr- 
tuousest,  discreetest,  best."  He  has  recorded  his  judg- 
ment that  from  newspaper  writing  a  man's  style  gains  in 
clearness  and  fluency,  but  Is  likely  to  become  loose,  diffuse, 
and  stuffed  with  bad  diction.  He  always  insisted  upon 
simplicity  as  the  sole  foundation  of  a  fine  style.  Once 
the  Post  received  a  letter  from  a  servant  girl  so  clear  and 
precise  that  Bryant  had  her  sought  out  to  learn  how  she 
could  write  so  well.  She  explained  that  she  used  no  ex- 
pression of  whose  meaning  she  was  not  certain;  that  if 
at  first  she  did  so,  she  later  struck  it  out  and  substituted 
a  simpler  word  or  phrase.  Bryant  held  this  procedure 
to  be  a  model  for  reporters. 

Parke  Godwin,  writing  Charles  A.  Dana  in  1845  ^^^^ 
the  best  all-round  editor  In  America  was  Greeley,  added 
that  Bryant  "is  by  all  odds  the  most  varied  and  beautiful 
writer."  He  here  touched  one  of  Bryant's  most  dis- 
tinctive merits  as  an  editor.  Bryant  could  not  argue  with 
more  force  than  Greeley,  or  with  the  incisiveness  and 
point  of  E.  L.  Godkin;  but  when  moved  by  a  great  event, 
he  wrote  with  an  eloquence  which  no  other  editor  ever 
attempted.  The  springs  that  fed  his  poetry  fed  this  mas- 
tery of  elevated  prose.  Any  one  who  will  study  the  fine 
rhetorical  effects  of  his  first  great  poem,  "Thanatopsis," 
or  of  one  of  his  last,  "The  Flood  of  Years,"  will  under- 
stand what  effects  he  sometimes  wrought  in  the  editorial 
columns  of  the  Evening  Post.  Opening  soberly  though 
on  a  high  plane,  his  more  impassioned  editorials  would 
rise  to  a  splendid  climax.  He  did  not  use  his  grand  style 
too  frequently,  but  during  the  Civil  War  he  employed  it 
again  and  again.  Thus  he  wrote  July  6,  1863,  upon  the 
"three  glorious  days"  at  VIcksburg  and  Gettysburg: 

Many  a  gallant  spirit  lies  silent  forever  on  the  bloody  field; 
many  peaceful  homes  are  instantly  made  desolate;  our  hearts  go 
forth  in  sorrow  to  the  fallen  and  in  condolence  to  the  bereaved; 
but  this  is  the  eternal  glory  of  those  who  have  perished,  as  of 


i^ 


\/ 


350  THE  EVENING  POST 

those  who  mourn  their  deaths,  that  they  have  given  their  lives  in 
the  noblest  cause  in  which  man  was  ever  called  to  suffer.  They 
have  died  for  a  country  which  is  worthy  of  the  blood  of  its  cit- 
izens; for  the  integrity  and  honor  of  a  government  in  which  the 
dearest  rights  of  millions  are  involved;  and  for  the  great  prin- 
ciples of  human  freedom  and  human  justice,  in  which  the  world 
and  ages  to  come  are  deeply  interested.  Nowhere  else  could  they 
have  earned  a  more  glorious  renown,  for  nowhere  else  could  they 
have  contributed  a  better  service  to  humanity. 

Again,  we  find  him  hailing  the  doom  of  the  Confed- 
eracy (Dec.  5,  1864)  : 

In  the  tone  of  that  pristine  rebel  whom  the  great  poet  makes 
to  exclaim,  "Better  to  reign  in  hell  than  serve  in  heaven,"  these 
proud  and  insolent  spirits  disdained  to  brook  their  fate,  and  flew 
to  revolt.  A  new  slave  empire,  a  new  semi-tropical  nation,  a 
grand  aristocracy  of  white  masters,  was  to  be  built  around  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico,  our  western  Mediterranean,  but  alas  for  these  dreams 
of  ambition,  the  throne  of  Maximilian  casts  its  shadow  over  one 
end  of  their  prospective  dominion,  and  the  tread  of  Sherman's 
soldiers  shakes  the  other  into  dust. 

But  the  foundation  of  Bryant's  power  as  an  editor  lay 
simply  In  his  soundness  of  judgment,  and  his  unwavering 
courage  In  maintaining  It.  The  greatest  peril  of  the  pro- 
fession, he  wrote  In  185 1,  "Is  the  strong  temptation  which 
It  sets  before  men,  to  betray  the  cause  of  truth  to  public 
opinion,  and  to  fall  In  with  what  are  supposed  to  be  the 
views  held  by  a  contemporaneous  majority,  which  are 
sometimes  perfectly  right  and  sometimes  grossly  wrong." 
That  peril  was  greater  In  Bryant's  day  than  now,  for  the 
comparative  smallness  and  homogeneity  of  the  reading 
public  made  It  more  dangerous  to  incur  the  general  dis- 
pleasure. He  never  yielded  in  the  slightest  degree  to 
it;  and  the  number  of  Instances  In  which  his  view  of  public 
questions  became  the  view  taken  by  history  Is  remark- 
able. The  Evening  Post's  defense  of  trade  unions,  and 
of  the  abolitionists'  right  to  free  use  of  the  malls  and  to 
free  speech,  are  memorable  illustrations.  Just  before  the 
Civil  War  began  Bryant  ran  over  in  the  Post  a  Hst  of  Its 
measures,  at  first  opposed  by  the  majority,  but  later  ac- 


BRYANT  AS  EDITOR  351 

cepted  as  sound.  It  was  for  many  years  the  only  power- 
ful journal  north  of  the  Potomac  which  pleaded  for  a 
low  tariff.  It  resisted  the  internal  Improvement  system, 
advocated  the  sub-treasury  system,  and  defended  the  right 
of  petition.  It  successfully  opposed  the  assumption  of 
State  debts  by  the  national  government.  It  was  one  of 
the  earliest  and  most  earnest  advocates  of  cheaper  post- 
age rates,  already  partly  realized.  When  the  Fugitive 
Slave  law  had  been  proposed.  It  had  denounced  It  as  an 
Infringement  of  the  rights  of  the  States,  though  most 
Northerners  regarded  it  with  Indifference  or  approbation. 
As  for  the  great  slavery  question  In  general,  Bryant  had 
already  written  just  after  Lincoln's  election: 

We  take  this  occasion  to  congratulate  the  old  friends  of  the 
Evening  Post,  who  have  read  it  for  the  last  score  of  years  or 
thereabouts,  on  this  new  triumph  of  the  principles  which  it  main- 
tains. The  Wilmot  Proviso  is  now  consecrated  as  a  part  of  the 
national  public  policy  by  this  election ;  but  earlier  than  the  Wil- 
mot Proviso  was  the  opposition  of  our  journal  to  the  enlargement 
of  slavery.  It  began  with  the  first  whisper  of  the  scheme  to  an- 
nex Texas  to  the  American  Union,  and  it  has  been  steadily  main- 
tained from  that  moment  till  now,  when  the  right  and  justice  of 
our  cause  is  proclaimed  in  a  general  election  by  the  mighty  voice 
of  a  larger  part  of  thirty  millions  of  people. 

Freedom,  democracy — to  these  two  principles  every 
utterance  of  the  Evening  Post  in  its  fifty  years  under 
Bryant  was  referred.  Other  journals  might  think  of  the 
day  only  and  let  the  morrow  take  care  of  itself,  but  he 
was  solicitous  that  each  Issue  should  fit  into  the  exposi- 
tion of  a  policy  good  for  the  year  and  the  decade.  ''He 
looked  upon  the  journal  which  he  conducted,"  wrote  his 
last  managing  editor,  Robert  Burch,  "as  a  conscientious 
statesman  looks  upon  the  official  trust  which  has  been 
committed  to  him,  or  the  work  which  he  has  undertaken — 
not  with  a  view  to  do  what  Is  to  be  done  to-day  in  the 
easiest  or  most  brilliant  way,  but  so  to  do  it  that  it  may 
tell  upon  what  Is  to  be  done  to-morrow,  and  all  other  days, 
until  the  worthiest  object  of  journalism  is  achieved.   This 


352  THE  EVENING  POST 

is  the  most  useful  journalism;  and  first  and  last,  it  is  the 
most  effective  and  influential." 

In  his  method  of  work,  combining  remarkable  efficiency 
with  a  remarkable  amount  of  disorder,  Bryant  was  a  true 
newspaper  man.  His  desk,  a  large  one  used  after  him  by 
Parke  Godwin  and  Carl  Schurz,  was  kept  piled  with 
litter — books,  manuscripts,  pamphlets,  documents,  and 
stranded  memoranda;  a  little  square  being  left  in  the 
middle  where  he  could  place  writing  materials  and  do  his 
work.  Once  when  Bryant  went  to  Europe,  says  Bigelow, 
"I  thought,  I  am  going  to  clean  house,  and  I  did,  and 
found  all  sorts  of  old  newspapers,  old  contributions,  let- 
ters, etc.,  etc."  When  the  poet  returned  and  saw  his 
desk  cleared,  he  demanded  an  explanation.  Bigelow, 
giving  it,  perceived  instantly  that  his  little  housecleaning 
had  been  an  error.  "I  saw  by  his  expression  that  I  was 
trespassing.  He  did  not  make  any  remark,  but  his  silence 
was  a  very  severe  rebuke.  He  did  not  like  it  at  all  that 
he  could  not  have  his  old  papers  just  as  he  had  left  them." 
Indeed,  he  was  attached  to  a  large  number  of  homely  but 
familiar  objects.  Among  these  was  a  pen-knife  with 
which  he  used  to  trim  both  his  quill  pen  and  his  finger 
nails.  He  owned  an  old  blue  cotton  umbrella  that  he 
always  insisted  upon  carrying.  When  he  was  departing 
for  Mexico,  his  daughter  replaced  it  with  a  handsome 
new  one,  but  he  missed  it  and  refused  the  exchange. 

It  was  Bryant's  habit  to  write  for  the  Post  on  the  backs 
of  circulars,  letters  received,  and  rejected  manuscripts, 
for  he  held  that  it  was  shameful  to  waste  the  least  scrap 
of  useful  material,  since  it  represented  men's  time  and 
labor.  It  is  curious,  in  looking  over  his  papers,  to  find 
what  these  scraps  were;  a  letter  to  Lincoln,  for  example, 
was  copied  off  from  the  back  of  a  wine  merchant's  cir- 
cular, offering  Moet  champagne  at  $12  the  case.  Yet  he 
was  really  the  soul  of  carefulness.  His  copy  often  went 
up  to  the  printer  a  mass  of  interlineations  and  corrections; 
he  never  sent  a  letter  away  without  first  making  a  rough 
draft.  Throughout  his  life  he  made  it  a  rule  to  write 
everything  for  the  Post  in  the  oflUce,  never  at  home,  and 


BRYANT  AS  EDITOR  353 

even  when  an  additional  task  was  laid  upon  him,  as  when 
he  wrote  a  sketch  of  the  journal's  history  in  185 1,  he 
refused  to  do  it  elsewhere.  This  was  a  wise  husbanding 
of  his  nervous  energy;  but  his  family  recalls  that  he  and 
Parke  Godwin  often  discussed  the  paper's  affairs  at  night. 

No  head  of  a  newspaper  was  ever  more  considerate  of 
his  subordinates  than  Bryant,  who  had  but  one  serious 
quarrel  with  an  associate,  and  that  was  soon  bridged  over. 
Bigelow  tells  us  that  "he  never  rebuked  me;  he  never 
criticized  me."  In  looking  over  Bigelow's  proofs,  he 
would  sometimes  say,  "Had  not  this  word  better  be 
changed  for  that  or  the  other?  Does  that  phrase  express 
all  or  more  than  you  mean,  or  as  clearly  as  you  wish  it 
to?"  Even  this  gentle  correction  was  rare.  Another 
worker  tells  us  that  it  was  Bryant's  habit,  whenever  he 
wished  to  speak  to  any  one  in  the  office,  to  go  to  the  desk 
of  the  man  rather  than  call  him  in.  When  John  R. 
Thompson,  the  Southern  poet,  became  literary  editor  just 
after  the  Civil  War,  Bryant  knew  how  ardently  he  had 
sympathized  with  the  Confederacy,  and  personally  saw 
that  he  was  given  no  book  to  review  that  would  hurt  his 
feelings.  We  have  noted  how  he  refused  to  say  a  word 
against  the  inefficient  business  manager  of  the  Post  early 
in  the  fifties,  though  recognizing  his  incompetence.  He 
never  wavered  in  his  loyalty  to  Isaac  Henderson  when 
the  latter  was  under  fire  in  connection  with  Civil  War 
contracts,  and  beyond  doubt  remained  sincerely  convinced 
that  Henderson  had  done  no  wrong. 

In  the  office,  as  outside  of  it,  in  fact,  Bryant  was  a 
thorough  democrat.  During  his  travels  in  England, 
while  staying  at  the  home  of  a  business  man,  he  was  once 
invited  to  dine  with  a  country  gentleman  near  by,  and 
accepted  in  the  belief  that,  as  a  matter  of  course,  his  host 
had  also  been  invited.  When  he  learned  that  this  was  not 
true,  and  that  his  host,  being  in  trade,  never  thought  of 
entering  the  gentleman's  house,  Bryant  angrily  canceled 
his  acceptance.  The  incident  made  so  disagreeable  an 
impression  upon  him  that  he  shortened  his  stay  in  the 
country.    Similarly,  when  Dickens  first  visited  New  York, 


354  THE  EVENING  POST 

a  rich  old  Knickerbocker  who  had  never  theretofore  taken 
the  slightest  notice  of  Bryant  asked  him  to  his  house  to 
meet  the  young  novelist;  and  Bryant  declined/  telling  a 
friend  that  he  would  never  be  a  stool-pigeon  to  attract 
fine  birds  of  passage.  In  all  relations  with  others  Bryant 
^  thought  of  the  man,  not  of  his  rank,  money,  or  reputation. 
The  poverty-stricken,  invalid  Thompson  became  one  of 
the  intimates  of  his  home  soon  after  he  joined  the  Posty 
and  the  editor  showed  a  much  higher  regard  for  the 
rugged  head  of  the  composing-room,  Dithmar,  than  for 
many  a  general  or  millionaire.  When  the  Post  moved 
to  its  new  building  in  1875,  Bryant  rarely  occupied  the 
handsome  office  fitted  up  for  him  there,  with  Its  fine  view 
of  the  harbor,  preferring  a  humble  chair  and  desk  in  a 
corner  of  the  composing  room  upstairs,  where  he  was  free 
from  boresome  callers. 

"In  his  intercourse  with  his  co-laborers  and  sub- 
ordinates," wrote  Parke  Godwin,  "the  Impression  pro- 
duced by  Mr.  Bryant,  after  a  certain  reticence,  which 
diffused  an  atmosphere  of  coldness  about  him,  was  broken 
through,  was  that  of  his  extreme  simplicity  and  sincerity 
of  character.  He  was  as  transparent  as  the  day,  as  guile- 
less as  a  child,  and  as  clear  in  his  integrity  as  the  crystal 
that  has  no  flaw  nor  crack."  The  coldness  was  but  a 
mask,  and  Bryant's  own  feelings  often  threw  It  off.  En- 
tering the  office  one  day,  he  told  In  a  self-accusing  way 
how,  walking  down-town,  he  had  smashed  a  kite  that  a 
small  boy  dragged  across  his  face,  without  paying  the 
urchin  for  it ;  he  reproached  himself  deeply.  George  Gary 
Eggleston,  who  worked  beside  him  three  or  four  years, 
says  that  "I  found  him  not  only  warm  in  his  human  sym- 
pathies, but  even  passionate."  Sometimes  he  would  do 
something  almost  boyish.  Once  he  was  standing  by  a 
form  around  which  the  printers  were  gathered,  hurriedly 
preparing  It  for  the  press.  A  word  was  spoken  which 
suggested  some  stanzas  from  Cowley,  and  Bryant,  lock- 
ing his  hands  before  him,  repeated  the  verses  with  re- 
markable force  and  expression,  while  the  printers  paused 
and  listened.    Then  he  recovered  himself  with  a  start,  a 


BRYANT  AS  EDITOR  355 

look  of  embarrassment  overspread  his  face,  and — to 
change  the  subject — he  turned  to  the  casement  around  the 
elevator,  tapped  It,  and  said:  "There  is  very  little  wood 
there  to  make  trouble  in  case  of  fire." 

He  was  wont  to  impress  upon  his  associates  the  desira- 
bility of  acting  as  courteously  toward  men  and  women 
of  the  outside  world  as  possible.  Bigelow  says  that  he 
used  to  cite  the  example  of  Dr.  Bartlett,  editor  of  the 
Albion,  whose  rule  was  "never  to  write  anything  of  any 
one  which  would  make  it  unpleasant  to  meet  him  the 
following  day  at  dinner."  When  Martin  F.  Tupper  was 
about  to  visit  the  Philadelphia  Exposition  of  1876, 
Eggleston  wrote  a  playful  editorial  about  him,  which  the 
managing  editor  received  with  some  apprehension,  for  he 
knew  that  Tupper  had  once  entertained  Bryant  in  Eng- 
land. It  was  decided  to  show  Bryant  the  manuscript. 
The  editor  read  it  with  evident  amusement,  but  remarked : 
"I  heartily  wish  you  had  printed  this  without  saying  a 
word  to  me  about  it,  for  then,  when  Mr.  Tupper  becomes 
my  guest,  as  he  will  if  he  comes  to  America,  I  could  have 
explained  to  him  that  the  thing  was  done  without  my 
knowledge  by  one  of  the  flippant  young  men  of  my  staff. 
Now  that  you  have  brought  the  matter  to  my  attention, 
I  can  make  no  excuse."     The  article  was  not  published. 

He  disliked  to  rebuff  unwelcome  visitors.  "It  is  a  posi- 
tive fact,"  writes  the  veteran  dramatic  editor  of  the 
Evening  Post,  Mr.  J.  Ranken  Towse,  "that  he  not  infre- 
quently preferred  to  escape  them  by  passing  through  a 
back  door  opening  into  the  composing  room,  and  descend- 
ing thence  to  the  ground  floor  by  means  of  the  freight 
elevator.  Sometimes  he  sent  for  me  and  asked  me  to  rid 
him  of  the  visitors.  This  I  did  easily  and  unscrupulously. 
Thus,  in  addition  to  my  regular  duties — I  was  then  city 
editor — I  became  a  sort  of  amateur  Cerberus."  When 
the  widow  of  John  Hackett,  a,  young  woman  of  striking 
beauty  but  no  stage  experience,  resolved  to  play  Lady 
Macbeth,  she  visited  the  Post,  and  although  Mr.  Towse 
tried  to  dissuade  her,  she  induced  Bryant  to  make  a  half- 
promise  to  deliver  an  introductory  speech  at  her  first 


356  THE  EVENING  POST 

appearance.  Bryant  uneasily  confessed  this  to  Mr. 
Towse,  who  warned  him  plainly  of  the  false  position  in 
which  he  would  be  left  when  her  debut  proved  a  failure, 
as  it  was  certain  to  do.  When  Mr.  Towse  offered  to 
extricate  him  by  dismissing  Mrs.  Hackett  upon  her  next 
call,  the  poet  eagerly  assented. 

It  should  be  said  that  Bryant  could  be  very  blunt  on 
occasion,  and  had  no  hesitancy  in  offending  those  he  dis- 
liked. There  were  some  men  to  whom  he  would  never 
speak.  Thurlow  Weed,  who  for  a  time  edited  the  World, 
was  one.  Once  when  they  were  together  at  an  evening 
party  a  friend  insisted  that  he  must  be  allowed  to  intro- 
duce them;  finally  Bryant  half  arose  from  his  chair,  and 
then  sank  back,  saying,  "Not  yet — not  yet  I"  When  he 
concluded  that  a  man  in  public  life  had  done  wrong,  he 
followed  him  to  the  end  of  his  career  with  unbending 
aversion.  In  the  warfare  over  the  United  States  Bank, 
he  conceived  a  fierce  hatred  of  Nicholas  Biddle ;  and  when 
Biddle  died,  far  from  taking  a  nil  nisi  honum  attitude,  he 
expressed  deep  regret  that  he  had  not  died  in  jail.  His 
judgment  so  angered  Philip  Hone  that  he  wrote  of 
Bryant  in  his  famous  Diary  as  a  "black-hearted  mis- 
anthrope," saying :  "This  is  the  first  instance  I  have  known 
of  the  vampire  of  party  spirit  seizing  the  lifeless  body  of 
its  victim  before  its  interment,  and  exhibiting  its  bloody 
claws  to  the  view  of  mourning  relatives."  As  well  expect 
honey  from  the  rattle-snake  as  poetry  from  such  a  man, 
he  added. 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that  Bryant  was  always 
severely  dignified.  If  he  never  commanded  a  subordinate 
to  do  anything,  but  always  requested  it,  he  knew  that  his 
request  was  a  command.  He  always  addressed  others 
with  the  prefix  "Mr.,"  and  no  one,  not  even  Bigelow  or 
his  son-in-law  Parke  Godwin,  omitted  the  word  in  ad- 
dressing him.  When  Dom  Pedro  of  Brazil  visited  the 
Evening  Post,  Bryant  did  not  greet  the  popular  Emperor 
in  the  hall,  but  waited  to  receive  him  at  his  desk;  and 
he  called  a  junior  to  show  Dom  Pedro  the  press  room. 

A  certain  testlness  grew  upon  the  editor  in  his  later 


BRYANT  AS  EDITOR  357 

years,  though  it  was  never  more  than  momentary.  He 
was  especially  sensitive  to  any  suggestion  that  he  was 
losing  his  bodily  vigor.  Not  only  would  he  climb  the 
stairs  to  his  ninth-floor  ofiice,  but  he  would  now  and  then 
seize  the  frame  of  his  door,  and  show  his  abihty  to  "chin" 
it  repeatedly.  Once,  when  he  fell  in  Broadway,  he 
sharply  rebuffed  a  gentleman  who  stepped  up  and  asked, 
"Are  you  hurt,  Mr.  Bryant?" — and  he  was  a  little 
ashamed  of  it  later.  Mr.  Towse  once  saw  him  consult- 
ing the  city  directory,  his  face  showing  plainly  that  the 
print  was  too  fine  for  his  eyes.  Forgetting  Bryant's  pride 
in  using  no  spectacles,  he  inquired,  "Cannot  I  help  you, 
Mr.  Bryant?"  The  poet  instantly  rejoined,  "No,  sir!" 
with  the  angry  tone  of  an  insulted  man,  flung  the  book 
on  a  table,  and  walked  swiftly  from  the  room.  Mr. 
Towse  also  tells  us  that  if  you  asked  Bryant  a  question, 
you  were  wise  to  accept  his  answer  as  final.  "I  was  not 
long  in  finding  that  out.  There  had  been  an  argument 
over  the  correct  spelling  of  the  word  'peddler.'  As  he 
was  at  his  desk,  I  referred  the  matter  to  him.  'I  shall 
have  to  write  it,'  he  said,  'to  make  sure.  It  is  often  only 
by  the  look  of  it  that  I  can  decide  whether  a  word  is 
rightly  spelled.'  He  wrote  the  word  in  several  ways  and 
finally  selected  the  form  in  which  I  have  given  it.  I 
thanked  him  and  asked  him  whether  either  of  the  other 
spellings  was  permissible.  He  turned  on  me  like  a  flash 
and  said  angrily,  'I  thought  you  asked  me  how  to  spell 
it?'" 

Such  incidents  were  an  evidence  of  Bryant's  increasing 
age.  Though  he  lived  to  be  eighty-three,  he  gave  his 
strength  to  the  Evening  Post  till  the  very  day  he  was 
stricken  down.  The  only  sustained  series  of  editorials  y 
which  he  wrote  after  his  final  visit  to  Europe  in  1867 
was  a  series  upon  reciprocity  in  trade,  but  he  still  con- 
tributed many  occasional  leaders  upon  questions  of  the 
day.  He  was  accustomed  to  come  down  in  the  morning, 
and  whether  he  wrote  an  editorial  or  not,  to  read  all  the 
proofs  with  care  and  frequently  to  make  heavy  correc- 
tions.   "He  would  pass  through  the  editorial  rooms  with 


358  THE  EVENING  POST 

a  cheery  good  morning,"  says  Eggleston;  "he  would  sit 
down  by  one's  desk  and  talk  if  there  was  aught  to  talk 
about;  or,  if  asked  a  question  while  passing,  would  stand 
while  answering  it,  and  frequently  would  relate  some 
anecdote  suggested  by  the  question  or  offer  some  apt 
quotation."  Hawthorne,  who  had  seen  him  abroad,  spoke 
of  him  as  "at  once  alert  and  infirm,"  and  with  "a  weary 
look  upon  his  face,  as  if  he  were  tired  of  seeing  things  and 
doing  things,  though  with  certainly  enough  energy  still 
to  see  and  do,  if  need  were."  Yet  the  vigor  and  fire  with 
which  he  treated  topics  of  the  day,  if  they  seemed  really 
pressing  topics  to  him,  was  not  a  whit  abated. 

It  is  the  testimony  of  more  than  one  co-worker  that 
his  last  day  in  the  office,  the  day  he  delivered  the  address 
at  the  unveiling  of  the  Mazzini  statue,  showed  him  worn 
and  depressed.  He  went  into  Eggleston's  room,  and 
asked  the  latter's  opinion  upon  two  poems  sent  him  by 
an  acquaintance.  Eggleston  said  they  were  poor  stuff. 
"I  supposed  so,"  Bryant  said  sadly;  "and  now  I  suppose 
I  shall  have  to  write  to  her  on  the  subject.  People  expect 
too  much  of  me — altogether  too  much."  He  chatted  also 
with  Watson  R.  Sperry,  the  managing  editor,  who  pro- 
cured a  book  of  reference  from  the  Evening  Post  library 
for  him.  He  was  as  tranquil  and  physically  as  strong  as 
ever,  but  there  was  a  tension  in  his  voice.  Finally,  says 
Sperry,  "he  said  to  me  that  it  was  quite  unfair  to  ask  a 
man  of  his  age  to  make  a  public  address.  There  was  a 
petulance  and  a  pathos  in  his  tone  which  I  had  never  heard 
before."  A  few  hours  later,  after  speaking  bareheaded 
in  the  sun,  he  collapsed  on  the  steps  of  Gen.  James  Wil- 
son's home. 

Bryant's  work  for  the  Post  must  not  be  thought  of  as 
consisting  wholly  of  editorial  writing  and  management. 
He  filled  literally  hundreds  of  its  columns  with  his  letters 
of  travel,  which  covered  each  of  his  six  trips  to  Europe, 
and  his  tours  to  the  South  and  the  Northwest,  and  which 
ultimately  were  collected  into  three  volumes.  The  letters 
are  not  literature,  but  good  journalism.  Bigelow  once 
wrote  Bryant  that  "they  are  very  much  liked  by  the  class 


BRYANT  AS  EDITOR  359 

— of  course,  not  the  largest — who  can  appreciate  them, 
and  are  of  great  value  to  the  paper.  I  like  them  none 
the  less  because  they  are  very  different  from  the  style  of 
correspondence  which  ordinarily  finds  its  way  into  news- 
papers from  abroad."  By  this  Bigelow  meant  that  they 
did  not  depend  upon  important  events,  adventure,  or  gos- 
sip. Their  interest  lay  in  a  careful  observation  of  scenery 
and  society  which  often  caused  them  to  be  widely  copied. 
In  the  early  days  the  poet  wrote  reviews  and  reports  of 
important  lectures.  His  signed  poems  in  the  Post  did  not 
aggregate  a  dozen,  but  they  were  supplemented  by  un- 
signed light  verse,  of  which  a  good  specimen  is  the  poem 
on  "Bully"  Brooks,  Sumner's  assailant,  to  be  found  in 
Godwin's  biography  (II,  92).  Brooks  had  been  chal- 
lenged to  a  duel  in  Canada  by  Anson  Burlingame: 

To  Canada,  Brooks  was  asked  to  go; 
To  waste  of  powder  a  pound  or  so; 
He  sighed  as  he  answered,  No,  no,  no, 
They  might  take  my  life  on  the  way,  you  know. 
For  I  am  afraid,  afraid,  afraid, 
Bully  Brooks  is  afraid.  .  .  . 

Bryant  reaped  a  generous  material  reward  for  his 
labors — the  Evening  Post  made  him  by  far  the  richest 
poet  the  country  has  had.  He  possessed  a  competence 
and  more  by  i860,  for  he  had  shared  equally  with  Bige- 
low in  profits  that  enabled  the  latter,  after  only  twelve 
years  with  the  paper,  to  retire  worth  more  than  $175,000. 
The  Post's  business  history  in  the  Civil  War  is  sum- 
marized in  the  statement  that  its  dividends  reached  80 
per  cent,  upon  the  capital  invested,  and  that  at  the  close 
of  the  struggle  its  value  was  commonly  estimated  at 
$1,000,000. 

It  made  Bryant,  with  Parke  Godwin  and  Isaac  Hender- 
son, wealthy  while  some  other  New  York  journals  were 
scarcely  paying  expenses.  The  Tribune  in  October,  1861, 
said  that  the  circulation  of  American  dailies  was  larger 
than  ever,  but  many  had  been  forced  into  bankruptcy. 
*'We  doubt  that  a  single  daily  in  this  city  has  paid  its 


36o  THE  EVENING  POST 

expenses  throughout  the  last  four  months,  or  that  a  dozen 
in  the  Union  have  done  so."  The  receipts  of  the  Tribune 
in  1864  were  $747,501,  and  its  expenses  were  $735,751, 
the  nominal  profit  not  sufficing  to  pay  for  the  deprecia- 
tion of  the  plant.  The  chief  reason  for  the  embarrass- 
ment of  the  morning  papers  was  the  enormous  cost  of 
paper,  especially  as  the  war  neared  its  close.  The 
Tribune's  paper  bill  during  1864  was  $426,000,  whereas 
in  1 86 1  it  would  not  have  been  more  than  $200,000  for 
the  same  circulation.  In  the  space  of  only  four  months, 
April  to  July,  1864,  the  combination  of  paper-makers  in 
the  Eastern  States  advanced  the  price  from  fifteen  cents 
a  pound  to  twenty-seven  cents.  The  Times  in  1863  im- 
ported paper  from  Belgium  at  seven  and  a  half  cents. 
The  position  of  the  Post  was  fortunate  in  that  it  used 
much  less  paper  than  the  Herald  or  Tribune — it  was  still 
a  four-page  paper,  while  they  had  eight  or  twelve  pages, 
though  of  course  smaller — while  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war  it  charged  three  cents  a  copy,  and  they  only  two. 
Later  the  prices  of  all  the  journals  advanced;  the 
Evening  Post  in  1862  going  to  four  cents  a  copy  and  from 
$9  a  year  to  $10,  and  in  1864  to  five  cents  a  copy  and  $12 
a  year. 

Just  how  high  the  war-time  circulation  became  we  do 
not  know.  In  April,  1861,  it  exceeded  20,000,  and  it 
steadily  increased,  the  demand  growing  so  heavy  the  first 
battle  summer  that  whenever  important  news  came  it  was 
necessary  to  issue  many  copies  printed  on  one  side  of  the 
sheet  alone.  To  obviate  this,  in  1862  the  journal  in- 
stalled "the  largest  and  most  efficient  eight-cylinder  news- 
paper press  that  has  ever  been  constructed,"  at  a  cost  of 
nearly  $50,000.  We  know  that  in  1864  the  total  revenue 
from  sales  and  subscriptions  of  the  daily  reached  $250,- 
000.  Advertising,  moreover,  had  become  so  extensive 
that  frequently  six  pages  instead  of  four  had  to  be  printed, 
and  they  had  swollen  to  enormous  size.  All  of  the  evening 
papers  were  still  "blanket  sheets,"  and  one  or  two  morn- 
ing papers,  the  most  prominent  being  the  Sun,  long  re- 
mained so.     At  the  close  of  the  war  the  dimensions  of 


BRYANT  AS  EDITOR  361 

the  unfolded  Evening  Post  were  30^  by  52  inches — it 
was  not  a  journal  for  use  in  such  subways  as  the  Evening 
Post  was  already  advocating.  No  newspaper  so  large, 
the  Post  boasted,  had  ever  attained  so  wide  a  circulation. 
Huge  as  it  was,  and  devoting  from  20  to  25  of  its  40  col- 
umns to  advertising,  it  had  constantly  to  exclude  adver- 
tisements. The  advertising  receipts  of  the  Herald  in 
1865  reached  $662,192;  of  the  Tribune,  $301,841;  of 
the  Times,  $284,412;  and  of  the  Evening  Post,  which 
stood  high  above  the  World  or  Sun,  and  easily  led  the 
evening  papers,  $222,715. 

Bryant,  who  in  the  late  thirties  would  probably  have 
sold  his  interest  in  the  Post  for  a  few  thousands  clear, 
thus  by  1866  had  grown  rich  far  beyond  any  wish  or  ex-  \^ 
pectation  on  his  part.  He  lived  very  simply;  a  man  who 
would  rather  walk  than  drive,  who  preferred  oatmeal  to 
any  procurable  dainty,  and  whose  most  lavish  entertain- 
ment was  to  have  the  Rev.  Dr.  Henry  Bellows  or  some 
other  well-loved  friend  spend  a  week-end  at  Roslyn,  could 
not  do  otherwise.  The  chief  outward  signs  of  his  wealth 
were  that  he  acquired,  besides  his  little  estate  at  Roslyn,  a 
town  house,  and  the  ancestral  homestead  at  Cummington, 
Mass. ;  while  he  unostentatiously  gave  large  sums  in 
charity.  President  Mark  Hopkins  of  Williams  College, 
acknowledging  a  check  from  Bryant,  wrote  that  it  was  a 
queer  world  in  which  poets  were  able  to  be  lavish  philan- 
thropists. It  was  because  of  his  large  gifts  that  he  was 
able  to  contradict  with  some  asperity  a  stranger  who 
wrote  him  criticizing  his  tariff  views,  and  denouncing  him 
as  a  plutocrat  because  he  was  said  to  be  worth  more  than 
$500,000.  Bryant  replied,  in  a  hitherto  unpublished 
note: 

I  am  as  much  for  free  trade  as  yourself.  The  Evening  Post  has 
been  all  along  known  as  an  advocate  for  absolute  free  trade 
between  nations,  and  for  the  support  of  government  by  direct 
taxation.  But  as  the  state  of  public  opinion  leaves  no  hope  of  this, 
the  Evening  Post  for  the  present  cooperates  with  those  who  seek  a 
reduction  of  the  tariff  to  a  simple  revenue  standard  with  no  view 
leading  to  protection.    That  is  as  much  as  we  can  now  get  and 


362  THE  EVENING  POST 

the  Evening  Post  is  for  taking  it.  As  we  cannot  go  by  a  single 
jump  from  the  bottom  of  the  stairs  to  the  top,  we  take  the 
first  step. 

Your  estimate  of  the  property  I  possess  is  greatly  exaggerated. 
You  intimate  that  I  ought  to  be  a  second  Zaccheus.  How  do  you 
know  I  am  not?  You  have  no  knowledge  of  how  much  of  my 
income,  such  as  it  is,  goes  to  public  objects,  and  to  the  poor.  Nor 
is  it  my  business  to  inform  you.  I  have  for  the  greater  part  of 
my  life  been  in  narrow  circumstances,  yet  never  repined  on  that 
account,  and  although  I  have  been  prospering  of  late,  it  is  not 
my  fault,  for  I  never  made  haste  to  be  rich.  You  see  therefore 
that  you  have  administered  reproof  without  knowing,  or  probably 
caring,  whether  there  was  any  occasion  for  it  or  not. 
(Dec.  14,  1870.) 

Bryant  began  his  journalistic  career  in  poverty  and  dis- 
couragement, his  literary  friends  jeering  at  him  for 
exchanging  the  dignified  profession  of  the  law  for  the 
jangling,  vulgar  newspaper  calling.  He  made  It  pay 
richly  in  money,  and  above  all  In  honor  and  influence. 
No  man  of  his  time  did  more,  and  only  three,  Greeley, 
Raymond,  and  the  elder  Bowles,  did  so  much,  to  elevate 
the  press  In  public  esteem.  "If  our  newspapers  have  risen 
above  the  level  on  which  they  stood  when  Dickens  and 
Trollope  held  them  up  to  the  scorn  of  Europe,"  said  the 
Brooklyn  Times  when  he  died,  "It  Is  because  they  have 
been  wise  enough  to  profit  by  the  lesson  set  by  William 
Cullen  Bryant."  He  had  often  crossed  pens  with  the 
Journal  of  Commerce  and  the  World.  The  former  spoke 
of  him  as  "an  editor  whose  example  has  been  uniformly 
ennobling,"  and  said  that  "journalism  will  never  Improve 
so  much  that  It  may  not  safely  pattern  by  Bryant."  "His 
long  and  honorable  career,"  said  the  latter,  "had  put  Into 
his  hands  that  mysterious  Influence  called  weight  of  char- 
acter." Not  a  few  journals,  like  the  Philadelphia  Ledger, 
and  some  Individuals,  like  John  D.  Van  Buren,  ranked 
the  editor  above  the  poet. 

When  George  W.  Curtis  dehvered  his  commemorative 
address  In  New  York  before  an  audience  which  included 
President  Hayes  and  members  of  his  Cabinet,  he  paid  his 
warmest  tribute  to  Bryant  as  the  journalist.     "The  fact 


BRYANT  AS  EDITOR  363 

is  no  such  man  ever  sat  before  or  since  in  the  editorial 
chair,"  a  critic  has  just  written  in  the  Cambridge  History 
of  American  Literature;  "in  no  other  has  there  been  such 
culture,  scholarship,  wisdom,  dignity,  moral  idealism. 
Was  it  all  in  Greeley  ?  In  Dana  ?  What  those  fifty  years 
may  have  meant  as  an  influence  on  the  American  press 
.   .  .   the  layman  may  only  guess." 


CHAPTER  SIXTEEN 

APARTMENT  HOUSES  RISE  AND  TWEED  FALLS 

Not  long  before  the  war  New  York's  manners  were 
provincial,  and  not  long  afterwards  the  city  felt  Itself 
one  of  the  world's  great  centers.  In  twenty  years,  1850- 
70,  the  population  grew  from  a  half  million  to  a  million. 
Such  large  groups  were  enriched  by  war  contracts,  the  rise 
of  real  estate,  and  the  nation-wide  business  expansion  that 
the  Increase  In  luxury  struck  every  observer.  A  Four 
Hundred  was  taking  shape,  rich  shops  were  arising,  the 
opera  was  growing  more  and  more  gilded;  In  1868,  said 
the  Evening  Post,  the  receipts  of  the  score  of  theaters 
reached  $3,165,000.  The  Post  that  year  listed  ten  of 
the  richest  men  In  order — Wm.  B.  Astor,  believed  to  be 
worth  $75,000,000;  A.  T.  Stewart,  Wm.  C.  Rhinelander, 
Peter  and  Robert  Goelet,  James  Lenox,  Peter  Lorlllard, 
John  D.  Wolfe,  M.  M.  Hendricks,  Rufus  M.  Lord,  and 
C.  V.  S.  Roosevelt.  Their  wealth,  It  told  them,  had 
become  so  great  that  If  they  tried  they  could  accomplish 
enormous  benefits  for  New  York — they  could  sweep  away 
the  debasing  tenement  house  system,  or  shatter  the  Tam- 
many Ring;  and  the  people  believed  that  public  services 
were  the  best  if  not  the  only  justification  for  such  wealth. 

The  growth  In  population  emphasized  the  desirability 
of  many  diverse  improvements.  At  the  beginning  of  1867 
the  Evening  Post  was  demanding  a  great  art  gallery,  such 
as  we  now  have  In  the  Metropolitan  Museum,  and  point- 
ing to  European  collections  as  models,  while  later  the 
same  year  it  urged  a  zoological  garden  like  London's, 
there  being  as  yet  none  In  all  America.  It  and  the  Tribune 
together  In  1871  asked  for  a  single  large  public  library. 
Th:re  were  several  small  ones — the  Astor^  the  Mercan- 
tile, the  Society  Library,  and  the  unfinished  Lenox 
Library — but  none  was  "public"  In  the  sense  that  it  circu- 

364 


APARTMENT  HOUSES  AND  TWEED    z^s 

lated  books  free,  while  the  city  would  obviously  benefit 
from  the  union  of  some  of  the  larger  collections.  Having 
been  the  first  to  propose  Central  Park,  Bryant  applauded 
the  creation  of  Prospect  Park  in  Brooklyn,  for  which 
ground  was  broken  in  1866.  Theodore  Thomas,  who 
had  begun  to  organize  his  orchestra  early  in  the  war,  and 
immediately  afterwards  had  opened  his  "summer  night" 
concerts,  issued  a  call  through  the  newspaper  for  a  sup- 
porting fund  of  $20,000.  In  several  editorials  in  the 
spring  of  1868,  the  first  entitled  ''Can  a  City  Be 
Planned?",  the  Evening  Post  suggested  that  a  board  of 
engineers  be  named  to  lay  out  a  city  plan,  determining 
which  areas  should  be  used  for  retail  trade,  manufactures, 
and  residence.  It  was  an  Age  of  Innocence  in  many  ways 
— people  wondered  at  the  first  concrete  sidewalk,  laid 
from  Park  Row  to  Murray  Street  in  1868  ;  they  were  just 
learning  the  use  of  safe  deposit  vaults,  and  elevators  were 
curiosities ;  but  it  was  an  age  of  progress. 

The  problem  which  most  pressed  upon  New  York  after 
Appomattox,  as  after  the  World  War,  was  housing. 
Building  had  stopped  during  the  conflict,  and  its  resump- 
tion was  slow,  but  Manhattan  had  kept  on  growing  at 
the  rate  of  30,000  people  a  year.  In  the  winter  of  1866-7 
the  Evening  Post  pronounced  New  York  the  most  costly 
place  of  residence  on  earth.  "Houses  are  so  scarce  that 
landlords  see  tenants  running  around,  like  pigs  in  the 
land  of  Cockaigne,  with  knives  and  forks  in  their  backs, 
begging  to  be  eaten;  it  is  a  favor  to  get  a  decent  house 
at  a  preposterous  rent — at  almost  any  sum,  in  fact;  and 
we  know  of  families  living  comfortably  in  Europe  from 
the  rent  of  a  house  on  one  of  the  favorite  avenues."  That 
spring  a  great  open-air  mass  meeting  was  held  in  protest, 
and  petitions  were  sent  the  Legislature  for  a  law  basing 
rents  upon  the  assessed  valuation.  Those  of  moderate 
means  suffered  more  than  the  rich  or  the  poor  tenement 
dwellers.  "Bank  clerks,  bookkeepers,  and  salesmen  are 
compelled  to  go  to  New  Jersey,  Staten  Island,  Long 
Island,  or  Westchester  to  secure  attractive  and  comfort- 
able homes,"  said  the  Post.     "New  York  is  practically 


366  THE  EVENING  POST 

losing  the  best  part  of  its  population."  The  practice  of 
sub-letting  parts  of  single  houses  waxed  common. 

From  this  demand  for  housing  there  arose  an  unprece- 
dented real  estate  boom.  Thousands  of  homes  were 
placed  on  the  market  at  high  prices,  and  land  auctions 
took  place  daily.  The  Evening  Post  reported  that  lots 
in  Manhattan  and  Brooklyn  were  eagerly  bought  at 
unheard-of  rates.  The  neighborhoods  of  Central  and 
Prospect  Parks  had  become  popular  for  residences,  while 
merchants  were  purchasing  sites  for  stores  on  Union 
Square  and  Fifth  Avenue.  Lots  that  fronted  upon  what 
Is  now  Central  Park  West  had  sold  In  1850  for  a  few 
hundred  dollars  apiece,  and  in  i860  for  from  $2,000  to 
$3,000,  but  in  1867  they  were  bringing  from  $8,000  to 
$15,000.  High  up  on  the  East  Side,  at  91st  Street,  lots 
now  sold  at  $3,000.  When  Bay  Ridge  Terrace  was 
created  In  1868  the  journal  commented  upon  the  rapid 
growth  of  that  fine  part  of  Brooklyn,  which  It  had  already 
noted  to  be  spreading  eastward  rapidly.  Brownsville  and 
East  New  York  before  the  war  had  been  quiet  farming 
communities,  but  now  the  former  had  a  hundred  houses, 
and  the  latter  had  grown  with  a  rush  to  5,000  souls. 

The  northward  march  of  business,  causing  the  demoli- 
tion of  hundreds  of  old  residences.  Increased  the  need  for 
new  residential  construction.  When  Ex-Mayor  Opdyke's 
house  on  Fifth  Avenue  near  Sixteenth  Street  was  sold  to 
James  A.  Hearn  &  Son  in  1867  for  $105,000,  and  a  mil- 
liner established  herself  on  the  Avenue  at  Twenty-second 
Street,  the  Evening  Post  devoted  an  editorial  to  the  trans- 
formation. It  predicted  that  all  Fifth  Avenue  to  Twenty- 
third  Street  would  soon  be  engrossed  by  business,  the  new 
Fifth  Avenue  Hotel  having  given  the  movement  impetus. 
Higher  up,  residential  property  had  reached  amazing 
prices.  A  brownstone  house  at  Thirtieth  Street  had  just 
been  purchased  for  $114,000,  while  P.  T.  Barnum  had 
bought  one  at  the  corner  of  Thirty-ninth  for  $80,000.  A 
fine  light  brownstone  mansion  on  the  corner  of  Fortieth, 
building  for  W.  H.  Vanderbllt,  would  cost  at  least 
$80,000,  the  stable  and  lot  included.      At  Forty-third 


APARTMENT  HOUSES  AND  TWEED   367 

Street  a  wealthy  Jewish  congregation  was  building  a 
synagogue  at  an  outlay  of  fully  $700,000,  while  ten  blocks 
farther  up,  where  St.  Thomas's  was  about  to  be  erected, 
$100,000  had  been  offered  and  refused  for  a  plot  100  by 
125  feet.  Seven  houses  with  brownstone  fronts  had  just 
been  finished  on  the  west  side  of  the  Avenue,  between 
Forty-third  and  Forty-fourth,  and  were  so  finely  fur- 
nished that  the  front  doors  had  cost  $700  each,  and  the 
staircases  $4,000. 

The  most  serious  aspect  of  the  housing  shortage  was 
that  as  yet  respectable  New  Yorkers  knew  but  two  modes 
of  residence :  one  must  either  take  a  full  single  house,  or 
consent  to  a  dismal  boarding  house.  The  apartment 
building  was  known  only  to  travelers  in  Europe,  and  was 
mistrusted  as  not  being  adapted  to  American  indi- 
viduahsm. 

The  possibility  of  utilizing  the  multiple-unit  type  of 
housing,  however,  was  unceasingly  expounded  by  the 
Evening  Post  from  the  time  peace  returned,  for  the  edi- 
tors had  lived  in  the  "Continental  flat"  abroad.  An  early 
editorial  (Feb.  6,  1866)  was  called  "How  to  Gain 
Room." 

It  has  been  suggested  frequently  that  tenement  houses  scientifi- 
cally built  would  be  profitable  in  New  York,  and  a  great  boon  to 
the  working  people.  But  they  would  be  no  less  an  advantage  to 
the  wealthier  classes,  and  we  wonder  that  the  attempt  has  not 
been  made  first  in  the  best  part  of  town,  and  with  houses  calcu- 
lated to  accommodate  families  of  the  wealthier  citizens,  at  a  some- 
what more  moderate  rent  than  is  attainable  now. 

Many  a  family  which  now  occupies  a  whole  house  uptown 
would  be  content  to  rent  a  floor,  suitably  fitted  up  after  the  man- 
ner of  the  houses  of  Paris  and  other  European  cities.  Such  an 
arrangement  would  spare  the  women  of  the  family  the  endless 
and  often  painful  toil  of  going  up  and  downstairs,  from  the 
kitchen  to  the  top  of  a  three-storied  house,  three  or  four  times  a 
day.  It  would  be  far  more  convenient,  and  the  rents  might  well 
make  a  considerable  saving. 

The  inertia  of  New  Yorkers  was  to  blame,  the  Post 
said  a  little  later.    "Such  a  thing  as  hiring  a  suite  of  rooms 


368  THE  EVENING  POST 

and  having  meals  sent  in  from  a  restaurant  at  a  fixed  and 
moderate  charge  is,  we  believe,  almost  if  not  quite 
unknown  here.  As  for  the  'flats'  in  which  thousands  of 
families  conveniently  and  comfortably  keep  house  in 
France  and  Germany,  they  require  an  arrangement  of 
house  architecture  not  known  to  our  builders."  In  the 
summer  of  1867,  when  the  congestion  was  at  its  worst, 
the  editors  gave  publicity  to  the  design  of  an  architect  for 
an  apartment  house  for  the  "middling  classes."  Upon 
two  ordinary  city  lots,  20  by  100  feet,  he  proposed 
erecting  a  four-story  building,  containing  eight  distinct 
suites  of  rooms,  all  as  completely  isolated  from  each  other 
as  though  they  were  detached  houses.  There  was  to  be 
a  central  stairs,  each  landing  giving  entrance  to  two 
homes;  but  every  visitor  would  have  to  ring  below  for 
admission  precisely  as  at  the  front  door  of  any  other 
houses.  Each  suite  was  to  contain  a  parlor,  dining  room, 
four  bedrooms,  bath,  and  kitchen.  For  some  time  the 
newspaper  carried  on  a  veritable  crusade. 

When  the  first  apartment  house  was  ready,  in  1870, 
one  designed  by  Richard  M.  Hunt  and  erected  at  142 
East  Eighteenth  Street,  the  Evening  Post  rejoiced  in  it 
as  the  harbinger  of  a  new  housing  era.  It  was  said  to  be 
better  than  most  of  those  in  Paris,  though  the  Post 
thought  it  lacking  in  light  and  ventilation.  Each  of  the 
sixteen  suites  had  six  rooms  and  a  bath,  and  rents  ranged 
from  $1,500  on  the  lower  floors  to  $1,080  on  the  upper — 
G.  P.  Putnam,  the  publisher,  and  others  of  means  lived 
in  it.  There  was  no  elevator,  but  a  dumbwaiter  enabled 
the  tenants  to  bring  coal  up  from  the  basement.  The 
close  of  1870  saw  the  new  movement  in  full  swing,  with 
eight  houses  built  or  building,  and  a  strong  demand  for 
more. 

An  apartment  house  on  Forty-eighth  Street  boasted  a 
porter,  who  lighted  the  halls,  removed  garbage,  and  sent 
up  fuel;  the  rents  were  only  $40  to  $75  a  month.  A 
block  of  flats  overlooking  Central  Park  from  the  east  at 
Sixty-eighth  Street  gave  each  tenant  eight  rooms  and  a 
bath,  elevator  service,  black  walnut  floors,  and  his  own 


APARTMENT  HOUSES  AND  TWEED    369 

kitchen  range  and  hot  water  heater  for  $75  to  $150. 
The  most  pretentious  house,  however,  was  building  at 
Fifth  Avenue  and  Madison  Square.  It  was  costing  a 
round  million,  and  was  to  be  125  feet  high.  *'Each  suite 
will  have  ten  rooms,  four  closets,  and  eight  washbowls," 
announced  the  Evening  Post,  and  rents  were  to  run  from 
$2,000  to  $3,000  a  year.  The  journal  advised  builders 
to  install  elevators,  and  charge  as  much  for  the  upper  as 
for  lower  floors. 

For  several  years  a  marked  prejudice  against  flats  per- 
sisted. Most  New  Yorkers  believed  that  In  this  land  of 
democratic  sociability  it  would  be  impossible  to  isolate 
the  apartments  and  obtain  privacy,  and  that  they  would 
soon  sink  to  the  level  of  tenements.  The  Post  did  its 
share  in  ridiculing  these  fears,  and  in  pointing  out  the 
ugliness  of  the  monotonous  blocks  of  brownstone  houses. 
It  denied  the  common  remark,  "No  house  is  big  enough 
for  two  families."  But  as  it  later  said,  one  of  the  car- 
dinal reasons  for  the  rapid  dissipation  of  the  prejudice 
and  popular  success  of  the  apartment  houses  was  the 
building,  in  the  first  instance,  of  costly  structures  as 
pioneers  in  the  movement. 

By  1874  it  thought  that  the  new  houses  "m^y  now  be 
considered  almost  perfect."  The  Haight  Buildings  at 
Fifteenth  Street  and  Fifth  Avenue,  offered  thirty  flats 
at  $2,000  to  $3,000  a  year  each,  with  an  elevator,  an 
Internal  telegraph,  and  a  restaurant.  Among  the  notables 
living  here  were  Henry  M.  Field,  the  traveler;  Col.  W.  C. 
Church,  editor  of  the  Galaxy;  Prof.  Youmans,  founder  of 
the  Popular  Science  Monthly,  and  the  Spanish  Consul. 
But  the  last  word  In  luxury  was  an  apartment  building 
In  Fifty-sixth  Street,  where  "the  whole  house  Is  warmed 
by  steam,  and  hot  water  is  supplied  to  all  the  tenants  at 
the  expense  of  the  owner."  The  paper's  prediction  that 
ten-story  houses  with  elevators  would  be  more  popular 
than  smaller  buildings  had  been  completely  justified. 

Even  before  the  rise  of  the  apartment  house  came  the 
first  sharp  attacks  upon  tenement  evils.  New  York  City 
had  no  lack  of  this  particular  kind  of  multiple-family 


370  THE  EVENING  POST 

dwelling,  for  in  1864  they  numbered  15,511,  and  housed 
486,000  persons.  They  were  far  from  being  what  we 
mean  by  tenements  to-day:  not  until  about  1879  was  the 
first  tenement  house  of  the  now  familiar  type,  five,  six, 
or  more  stories  high,  erected.  The  earlier  buildings 
were  comparatively  low  barracks,  many  of  them  con- 
verted mansions,  shops,  and  stables,  and  others  "rear 
houses"  in  the  back  yards  of  old  mansions;  all  without 
airshafts,  and  with  no  complete  provision  for  separating 
families.  The  Evening  Post  fitly  called  them  "The 
Modern  Upas,"  for  they  breathed  upon  the  city  the 
poisons  of  cholera,  typhus,  smallpox,  and  crime.  As 
early  as  April,  i860,  six  years  before  the  first  legislative 
inquiry  into  the  housing  of  the  poor,  the  editors  had 
called  shocked  attention  to  police  records  showing  that 
some  18,000  New  Yorkers  were  veritable  troglodytes, 
dwellers  in  cellars.  It  spoke  out  at  the  same  time  against 
the  horrible  congestion  of  the  slums.  One  "rear  house" 
on  Mulberry  Street  had  222  persons  huddled  together; 
in  Cow  Bay,  one  of  the  colored  quarters,  one  house  held 
230  persons;  while  the  notorious  Old  Brewery  at  Five 
Points  had  sheltered  215  people  before  it  burned.  In 
the  Sixth  Ward,  surrounding  the  Five  Points,  sixty-three 
small  structures  housed  4,721  persons. 

An  indignant  editorial  attack  upon  the  deplorable 
tenement-house  conditions  appeared  in  the  Evening  Post 
six  months  after  Lee's  surrender,  inspired  by  a  report 
of  the  Citizens'  Association.  Half  the  people  of  New 
York  lived  in  tenements,  and  on  the  East  Side  they  were 
packed  in  at  the  rate  of  220,000  to  the  square  mile.  The 
Post  estimated  that  more  than  25,000  dwelt  in  unfit 
cellars,  shanties,  or  stable-lofts.  Of  the  15,000  tene- 
ments, almost  4,000  had  no  connection  with  the  sewers. 
One  in  three  was  a  perpetual  "fever  nest,"  in  which 
typhus  was  endemic,  while  not  one  in  fifteen  was  what 
a  tenement  house  ought  to  be.  A  single  "fever  nest"  on 
East  Seventeenth  Street,  almost  within  a  stone's  throw 
of  the  Mayor's  home,  had  sent  thirty-five  typhus  patients 
during  1864  to  the  municipal  fever  hospital,  while  nearly 


APARTMENT  HOUSES  AND  TWEED   371 

a  hundred  more  had  been  treated  in  the  building.  The 
public,  repeated  the  Post  early  in  1867,  was  astonished 
to  awake  from  the  war  to  the  vast  extent  of  the  tenement 
system,  the  immense  numbers  inhabiting  such  places,  and 
the  horrid  evils  of  filthiness,  immorality,  and  sickness 
engendered  by  them.  "No  man  has  a  right  to  establish 
a  nest  of  fever  and  vice  in  the  city,"  it  said,  arguing  for 
new  laws  and  a  government  agency  to  regulate  the  con- 
struction and  use  of  tenements. 

Simultaneously,  the  newspaper  kept  up  its  old  com- 
plaints, dating  from  Coleman's  day,  of  the  lack  of  due 
sanitary  regulations  and  activity.  Slaughter-houses  con- 
tinued to  abound,  there  being  twenty-three  in  the  north- 
ern half  of  the  Twentieth  Ward  alone,  some  of  them 
draining  blood  and  other  refuse  for  long  distances 
through  open  sewers.  In  Forty-sixth  Street  on  the 
East  Side,  a  single  neighborhood  was  blessed  with  one 
slaughter-house,  six  tripe,  three  sausage,  and  two  bone- 
boiling  establishments,  and  inj  the  summer  was  almost 
uninhabitable  (Sept.  2,  1865).  A  little  later  the  Post 
took  notice  of  the  nastiness  of  the  harbor.  Many  sewers 
emptied  into  the  slips  and  under  the  piers,  and  there 
being  no  movement  of  the  water,  the  sewage  decayed 
until  it  had  to  be  dredged  out.  These  facts  help  explain 
an  editorial  of  1866  defining  the  typhus  area  block  by 
block.  It  extended  in  irregular  strips  from  the  Battery 
up  the  West  Side  to  Cortlandt  Street,  and  up  the  East 
Side  to  Thirty-sixth.  Smallpox  was  endemic  through- 
out a  rectangle  bounded  by  Broadway,  the  Bowery, 
Chambers,  and  Bleecker,  and  in  so  many  additional  spots 
in  the  lower  part  of  the  city  that  a  man  could  hardly  get 
to  his  work  downtown  without  crossing  infected  areas. 

In  the  spring  of  1867  the  Legislature  hesitatingly 
passed  the  first  act  to  regulate  the  erection  and  manage- 
ment of  tenements.  Though  it  was,  as  the  Evening  Post 
said,  "much  less  stringent  and  particular"  than  the  Eng- 
lish laws  on  which  it  was  modeled,  it  placed  important 
powers  in  the  city  Board  of  Health  organized  shortly 
before,  for  which  the  Post  had  also  struggled.     All  ten- 


372  THE  EVENING  POST 

ants  of  cellars  were  required  to  vacate  them  unless  they 
could  obtain  special  permits,  and  within  two  years  the 
Post  was  rejoicing  over  a  drastic  order  for  the  cutting 
of  46,000  windows  In  Interior  rooms.  Of  course  this 
legislation  was  only  a  beginning.  In  1878-79  we  find 
the  Evening  Post  vigorously  agitating  for  Its  extension, 
and  publishing  articles  upon  "The  Homes  of  the  Poor" 
which  give  a  horrifying  picture  of  Mulberry  Court  and 
other  slum  sections.  Half  of  the  city's  125,000  children 
lived  In  tenements,  and  nine-tenths  of  the  deaths  among 
children  occurred  there.  In  May,  1878,  the  "Evening 
Post  Fresh-Air  Fund"  was  founded  for  the  purpose  of 
sending  slum  children  to  country  homes  for  summer  rest 
and  recreation.  The  business  office  collected  and  dis- 
bursed the  money  raised  by  almost  dally  appeals  In  the 
newspaper,  and  the  Rev.  WlUard  Parsons  took  charge 
of  the  work  of  finding  farmers  to  take  the  children, 
and  of  transporting  them.  Some  years  later  the  Tribune 
took  over  the  Fresh-Air  Fund,  and  still  maintains  It.  In 
1879,  after  a  mass-meeting  upon  the  tenement  problem 
at  Cooper  Union,  addressed  among  others  by  Parke 
Godwin,  then  editor  of  the  Evening  Post,  new  regulatory 
legislation  was  passed  at  Albany. 

Every  one  saw  that  evils  In  housing  could  not  be  cor- 
rected without  expanding  the  city's  area,  and  In  the  decade 
after  the  Civil  War  the  city  press  paid  little  more  atten- 
tion to  them  than  to  the  twin  perplexity  of  transporta- 
tion. The  first^talk  of  a  subway  had  been  heard  in  the 
early  fifties,  and  was  thin  talk  Indeed,  although  the  Lon- 
don underground  railway  dates  from  1853.  The  Evening 
Post  used  to  boast  that  It  had  been  the  first  journal  to 
propose  a  steam  subway,  Bryant  having  brought  the  idea 
home  from  England.  But  the  real  solution  of  the  transit 
problem,  for  a  period  which  had  no  electric  traction,  lay 
In  the  elevated  railways  which  Col.  Robert  L.  Stevens 
had  suggested  as  long  before  as  1831.  The  need. grew 
more  and  more  urgent.  When  the  war  ended,  transpor- 
tation was  furnished  by  the  horse  railways  and  by  eight 
omnibus  companies.     The  horse-cars  were  slowly  driving 


APARTMENT  HOUSES  AND  TWEED    373 

the  buses  out  of  business,  the  great  Consolidated  Com- 
pany, which  operated  a  half-dozen  lines,  having  gone 
bankrupt  in  1864;  but  there  remained  250  of  the  vehicles, 
or  enough  to  impede  other  traffic  seriously.  The  capital 
invested  in  them  was  $1,600,000,  for  each  had  six  $200 
horses,  while  wages  and  stabling  costs  had  risen  fast. 

To  find  room  for  the  growing  population,  and  to  ease 
the  streets  of  their  intolerable  burden — these  were  the 
two  chief  arguments  for  rapid  transit.  As  the  Evening 
Post  said  in  the  closing  days  of  1864,  the  most  desirable 
parts  of  the  island,  the  sections  abreast  of  and  above 
Central  Park,  were  largely  given  up  to  pigs,  ducks, 
shanty-squatters,  and  filth.  A  railroad  under  Broadway, 
it  thought,  would  soon  change  all  that.  "When  a  mer- 
chant can  go  to  Central  Park  in  fifteen  minutes  he  will 
not  hesitate  to  live  in  Seventieth  or  Eightieth  Street; 
and  a  resident  of  One  Hundredth  Street  could  reach  the 
business  section  of  the  city  as  quickly  by  the  underground 
railway  as  those  who  live  In  Twentieth  Street  do  now." 
Better  live  in  Yonkers  than  Harlem,  it  remarked  later. 
As  for  the  streets,  it  declared  In  1866:  "Broadway  Is 
simply  intolerable  to  the  man  who  Is  in  a  hurry;  he  must 
creep  along  with  the  crowd,  no  matter  how  cold  it  Is;  he 
crosses  the  street  at  the  risk  of  his  life;  and  when  he  jour- 
neys up  and  down  in  an  omnibus,  he  wonders  at  the  skill 
with  which  a  wheeled  vehicle  is  made  so  perfectly 
uncomfortable." 

A  multitude  of  suggestions  for  better  transit  had  been 
brought  forward  by  this  time.  Some  men  proposed  one 
or  several  subways;  the  Evening  Post  modestly  thought 
that  five  were  needed,  several  beginning  at  the  Battery 
and  the  rest  at  Canal  Street,  and  all  running  to  the  Har- 
lem. Others  favored  elevated  roads  mounted  on  single 
pillars  in  the  streets,  and  still  others  called  for  such  roads 
running  over  the  housetops.  Sunken  railways  in  the 
middle  of  certain  streets  were  proposed,  and  one  power- 
ful intellect  devised  a  scheme  for  two  railways,  one  on 
each  side  of  Broadway,  running  "through  the  cellars"  I 
To  lessen  the  traffic  congestion  in  Broadway,  a  college 


374  THE  EVENING  POST 

professor  suggested  that  the  city  buy  the  ground  floor 
of  all  buildings  for  a  space  ten  or  twelve  feet  deep  on 
each  side,  and  form  an  arcade  there  for  foot  passengers, 
yielding  the  entire  street  to  vehicles.  Another  professor 
thought  that  horses  should  be  banished  altogether,  and 
the  freight  and  passenger  traffic  in  Broadway  restricted 
to  steam  trains.  To  all  the  plans  objections  were  made, 
and  were  frequently  as  wonderful  in  their  way.  Thus 
Engineer  Craven  of  the  Croton  Board  demonstrated  at 
length  in  February,  1866,  that  no  subway  could  ever  be 
built,  because  it  would  interfere  with  the  water  supply; 
and  even  the  Post  called  his  argument  "a  knockdown 
blow." 

In  the  spring  of  1867  the  Evening  Post  was  regarding 
hopefully  two  schemes  before  the  Legislature,  one  for 
a  "three-tier  railroad"  (subway,  surface,  and  elevated), 
and  one  for  a  metropolitan  underground  line.  In  1868 
the  Legislature  actually  authorized  a  steam  subway  from 
City  Hall  to  Forty-second  Street,  the  incorporators  of 
which  included  such  substantial  men  as  William  B.  Ogden, 
William  E.  Dodge,  and  Henry  W.  Slocum,  but  the  enter- 
prise did  nothing  more  than  demonstrate  the  immediate 
impracticability  of  the  plan.  Three  years  later  the  Post 
had  swung  to  the  sensible  view  that  an  elevated  would  be 
better  than  a  subway,  for  it  had  been  shown  that  the 
latter  would  cost  $30,000,000,  and  no  one  was  ready  to 
invest.  Elevated  construction  had  then  already  begun, 
and  when  Bryant  died  in  1878  there  were  four  lines. 

Subordinate  to  the  two  main  subjects  of  housing  and 
transit,  a  great  variety  of  comments  upon  city  affairs  can 
be  found  in  the  post-bellum  columns  of  the  newspaper. 
One  of  the  most  frequent  topics  of  editorial  complaint  in 
the  years  1866-68  was  the  dirty  and  broken  condition  of 
the  streets,  which  New  York  was  paying  a  former  Tam- 
many Judge,  James  R.  Whiting,  $500,000  a  year  to 
neglect.  Just  before  the  war  the  Post  had  contended 
energetically  for  the  introduction  of  sweeping  machines, 
and  now  it  objected  to  the  contract  system.  Some  city 
officer,  it  held,  should  be  responsible.    It  anticipated  Col. 


APARTMENT  HOUSES  AND  TWEED    375 

George  F.  Waring  when  it  suggested  that  the  city  might 
well  "engage  an  army  officer  used  to  drilling  and  handling 
a  large  number  of  men  and  accustomed  to  discipline,  and 
put  the  streets  in  his  charge,  with  a  simple  injunction  to 
keep  them  clean,  constantly,  under  all  circumstances." 
Early  in  the  seventies  we  find  the  paper  defending  Henry 
Bergh,  founder  of  the  S.  P.  C.  A.,  against  journals  which 
attacked  his  efforts  to  protect  dumb  animals  as  fanatical; 
applauding  (February,  1873)  the  first  stirrings  of  the 
movement  to  unite  New  York  and  Brooklyn  under  one 
government;  and  raising  an  agonized  outcry  over  the 
postoffice  which  Mullet,  the  supervising  architect  of 
the  Treasury,  was  building  at  City  Hall  Park. 

That  greater  city  toward  which  public-spirited  men 
then  looked  was  sketched  in  an  editorial  of  1867  entitled 
"New  York  in  19 — ."  The  Evening  Post  hoped  that 
before  the  twentieth  century  was  far  advanced  Central 
Park  would  be  really  central,  and  the  upper  part  of  the 
island  as  populous  as  the  lower.  Brooklyn  would  have 
been  united  governmentally  with  New  York,  and  phys- 
ically by  several  bridges  thrown  across  the  East  River. 
There  should  be  a  great  railway  station  in  the  heart  of 
the  city,  near  the  chief  hotels,  and  freight  stations  only 
on  its  borders.  Retail  trade  would  be  scattered,  and  "the 
Stewarts  of  that  day  will  be  found  on  broad,  clean  cross 
streets  near  the  Central  Park";  while  spacious  markets 
would  have  supplanted  "the  filthy  sheds"  in  which  pro- 
visions were  then  sold.  "The  streets  of  New  York  will 
be  no  longer  rough  and  dirty;  they  will  be  covered  with 
a  smooth  pavement  like  that  .  .  .  now  laid  on  a  part  of 
Nassau  Street  or  covered  with  asphaltum,  like  some  of 
the  pavements  of  Paris."  Whoever  wrote  the  editorial 
might  to-day  call  this  much  of  the  prophecy  fairly  real- 
ized. But  he  went  on  to  picture  an  adequate  system  of 
tenements,  comfortable,  sanitary,  and  cheap,  managed 
by  public-spirited  corporations;  a  rapid  transit  system 
sufficient  for  all  needs;  and  a  shore  line  equipped  with 
fine  piers  and  basins,  modern  warehouses,  and  the  best 


376  THE  EVENING  POST 

loading  and  unloading  apparatus — all  of  which  still  be- 
longs to  a  Utopian  vision. 

II 

The  most  important  municipal  questions,  however, 
arose  from  Tammany  politics ;  and  the  city  which  was  so 
sluggish  and  blundering  in  sheltering  itself  and  trans- 
porting itself  was  more  so  in  governing  itself.  The  his- 
tory of  the  most  memorable  years  of  New  York's  ad- 
ministration was  condensed  by  the  Evening  Post  in  the 
seventies  Into  a  short  municipal  epic: 

In  eighteen  hundred  and  seventy 

The  Charter  was  purchased  by  W.  M.  T. 

By  eighteen  hundred  and  seventy-one 

The  Tweed  Ring's  stealing  had  all  been  done. 

By  eighteen  hundred  and  seventy-two 

The  amount  of  the  stealing  the  people  knew. 

By  eighteen  hundred  and  seventy-three 

Most  of  the  thieves  had  decided  to  flee. 

In  eighteen  hundred  and  seventy-four 

Tweed  was  allowed  his  freedom  no  more. 

This  epic  starts,  as  it  should.  In  medtas  res.  An  enor- 
mous amount  of  stealing  had  been  done  before  1870,  and 
the  disclosures  of  the  summer  of  1871  were  by  no  means 
so  unexpected  as  we  are  likely  to  think.  When  A.  Oakey 
Hall  was  elected  Mayor  in  1868  on  the  Tammany  ticket. 
Intelligent  citizens  knew  that  there  existed  a  Ring  of  dual 
character — a  corrupt  combination  of  leading  Democratic 
politicians  in  New  York,  and  a  corrupt  alliance  between 
them  and  Republicans  at  Albany.  They  knew  that  the 
city  Ring  regularly  levied  tribute  on  accounts  for  sup- 
plies, construction,  and  repairs;  and  that  its  head  was 
William  M.  Tweed,  with  Peter  B.  Sweeney,  the  Cham- 
berlain, and  Richard  B.  Connolly,  the  Controller,  com- 
pleting its  guiding  triumvirate.  No  paper  had  Insisted 
so  constantly  upon  these  facts  as  the  Post.  It  may  claim 
to  have  been  the  leader  in  the  fight  against  the  Ring  until 
the  close  of  1870,  when,  with  the  resignation  of  Charles 


APARTMENT  HOUSES  AND  TWEED    377 

Nordhoff  as  managing  editor,  it  relaxed  its  efforts,  and  ( 
the  Times  stepped  to  the  front.  ^ 

Tweed  was  a  familiar  figure  to  all  interested  in  city- 
affairs — an  enormous,  bulky  personage,  his  apparent  pon- 
derosity belied  by  his  firm,  swift  step  and  his  piercing  eyes, 
grim  lips,  and  sharp  nose.  He  was  a  man  of  inexhaust- 
ible energy,  a  fighter  as  fresh  at  midnight  as^  at  noon. 
From  his  little  private  office  on  Duane  Street,  where  a 
faded  sign  proclaimed  him  an  attorney-at-law,  he  would 
sally  out  on  an  Instant's  notice  to  City  Hall,  to  Albany, 
or  to  some  ward  headquarters  where  a  revolt  was  brew- 
ing, and  assert  his  authority  with  despotic  effectiveness. 
By  his  untiring  activity,  his  imposing  physique,  and  his 
combination  of  cruelty,  shrewdness,  and  audacity,  he  had 
risen  in  fifteen  years  from  his  original  calling  of  chair- 
maker  to  be  a  multi-millionaire  and  dictator  of  the  city. 
The  oflice  on  which  he  chiefly  founded  this  success  was 
his  seat  on  the  County  Board  of  Supervisors,  which  he 
held  continuously  after  1857. 

His  lieutenant,  Sweeney,  or  "the  Squire,"  was  later 
called  by  an  Aldermanic  Committee  '*the  most  despicable 
and  dangerous,  because  the  best  educated  and  most  cun- 
ning of  the  entire  gang."  Nast's  cartoons  have  made  us 
familiar  with  his  villainous  look — his  low  forehead, 
heavy  brows,  thick  lips,  and  bushy  hair.  Yet  he  was 
quiet,  retiring,  cold,  averse  to  mingling  with  the  crowd 
or  with  other  politicians,  and  In  a  measure  cultured;  he 
was  a  ready  writer,  his  mental  operations  were  keen  and 
quick,  and  he  was  held  in  awe  by  the  Tammany  satellites, 
whom  he  would  pass  In  the  street  without  recognizing  by 
even  a  nod.  Connolly  was  the  most  respectable  of  the 
three  In  appearance,  looking,  with  his  trim  black  broad- 
cloth, close-shaven  face,  and  high,  narrow  forehead,  the 
very  part  of  a  business  or  municipal  treasurer.  He  was 
really  an  Ignorant  Irish-born  bookkeeper,  who  brought  to 
the  Ring  plenty  of  low  cunning,  the  product  of  a  mixture 
of  cowardice  and  greed,  and  the  quadruple-entry  system 
of  bookkeeping  which  It  found  so  useful. 

As  early  as  the  municipal  election  of  1863,  when  the 


378  THE  EVENING  POST 

Evening  Post  supported  Orison  Blunt  as  a  reform  can- 
didate against  the  nauseous  F.  I.  A.  Boole,  the  editors 
were  denouncing  "that  army  of  scamps  which  has  so  long 
fattened  upon  the  city  treasury."  The  paper  clearly  un- 
derstood how  the  Ring  had  originated.  For  ten  years 
preceding  the  war,  the  Republicans  had  exercised  gen- 
eral control  of  the  State  government,  and  the  Democrats 
of  the  city.  The  Legislature  step  by  step  had  reduced  the 
powers  of  the  municipality  by  entrusting  them  to  State 
boards  and  commissions.  As  a  climax  to  this  process.  In 
1857,  it  established  the  powerful  New  York  County 
Board  of  Supervisors,  a  State  body  composed  of  six  Re- 
publicans and  six  Democrats.  But  the  grafters  of  the 
two  parties  conspired  to  defeat  these  Ill-planned  efforts 
at  reform,  and  by  i860  discerning  men  saw  that  the  net 
result  of  the  transfer  of  authority  had  been  simply  to 
create  two  centers  of  corruption  Instead  of  one,  and  to 
implicate  both  parties.  Tweed  and  his  fellow-Demo- 
crats on  the  Board  of  Supervisors  quickly  gained  control 
by  bribing  one  of  the  Republicans,  and  at  Albany — 

a  bargain  [said  the  Evening  Post  of  Aug.  12,  1871]  was  made 
between  the  most  prominent  factions  in  the  two  parties,  the  Seward- 
Weed  Republicans  and  the  Tammany  Democrats,  by  which  the 
offices  were  divided  between  them,  and  all  direct  or  personal 
responsibility  for  official  conduct  was  destroyed.  Tammany  man- 
aged the  city  vote,  in  accordance  with  this  bargain ;  Mr.  A.  Oakey 
Hall,  the  counsel  of  the  combination,  drew  up  the  laws  which 
were  needed  to  carry  it  out;  Mr.  Thurlow  Weed  and  his  lobby 
friends  passed  them  through  the  Legislature,  and  the  New  York 
Times  gave  them  all  the  respectability  they  could  get  from  its 
hearty  support,  in  the  name  of  the  Republican  party. 

Immediately  after  the  war  the  Evening  Post  asked 
for  a  new  Charter  as  the  best  cure  for  the  evil.  The  city 
should  again  be  allowed  to  rule  itself,  the  editors  be- 
lieved, and  this  self-government  should  be  exercised 
through  one  party,  which  could  be  made  to  answer 
directly  for  all  acts  of  the  municipal  authorities.  "Make 
the  Democratic  party  clearly  responsible  in  this  city  for 
all  its  misgovernment,  corruption,  and  waste,   and  the 


APARTMENT  HOUSES  AND  TWEED    379 

people  would  drive  it  from  power  in  less  than  three 
years."  The  existing  Charter  had  four  great  defects, 
said  the  Post  in  January,  1867:  the  lack  of  home  rule, 
the  division  of  the  city  legislature  into  two  bodies,  which 
impeded  business,  the  failure  to  withdraw  all  executive 
functions  from  these  bodies,  and  the  fact  that  the  Mayor 
had  little  real  authority-  or  responsibility.  "All  the  suc- 
cessive changes  since  1830  have  been  made  upon  the 
same  principle  of  limiting  or  withdrawing  powers  that 
are  abused,  instead  of  enforcing  an  effective  responsibility 
for  the  abuse.  This  policy  .  .  .  has  produced  the  evils 
which  it  feared.  Never  was  the  administration  so  inef- 
fective, never  was  there  so  much  corruption,  and  never 
were  the  people  so  little  interested  in  choosing  their  offi- 
cers with  any  hope  that  one  class  or  set  will  do  better 
than  another." 

The  charges  made  by  the  paper  were  all  general — no 
guilty  men  or  departments  were  specified.  But  it  had  a 
pretty  clear  conception  of  the  extent  of  the  stealing.  In 
April,  1867,  it  alleged  that  the  city  was  being  robbed  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  in  "the  monstrous  court  house 
swindle" ;  robbed  by  the  politicians  in  collusion  with  the 
twenty  horse  railways  of  the  city,  of  which  only  three 
paid  the  full  license  tax  imposed  by  law;  robbed  in  the 
cleaning  and  repair  of  the  streets;  and  robbed  in  the 
renting  and  sale  of  the  city's  real  estate.  In  April,  1868, 
it  estimated  that  the  Ring  during  the  previous  year  had 
made  a  half  million  upon  the  contracts  for  the  building, 
repair,  and  furnishing  of  the  city  armories.  The  failure 
to  name  the  criminals  arose  from  the  inability  of  even 
so  able  a  managing  editor  as  Nordhoff  to  trace  the  pecula- 
tions. Since  the  district  attorney,  sheriff,  courts,  alder- 
men, and  even  the  Legislature  were  under  the  Ring's  in- 
fluence, the  secrecy  of  its  transactions  seemed  impene- 
trable. Give  the  city  a  new  government,  was  the  view  of 
the  Posty  and  reform,  though  not  necessarily  punishment 
of  the  criminals,  would  follow.  "Is  New  York  a  col- 
ony?" was  the  title  of  an  editorial  in  June,  1867.  More- 
over, the  paper  was  the  less  concerned  to  be  specific  in 


38o  THE  EVENING  POST 

that  it  believed  mere  general  denunciation  of  the  Ring 
was  having  a  much  greater  effect  than  was  the  case. 
''Thieves  Growing  Desperate,"  ran  another  editorial 
caption  of  April,  1868  : 

The  vampires  of  the  city  treasury  are  well  aware  of  the  grow- 
ing determination  of  the  people  to  make  away  with  them.  They 
must  choose  between  two  alternatives.  They  must  either  aim  at 
prolonging  their  privilege  of  plunder  by  moderating  and  disguising 
their  use  of  it,  or  they  must  steal  so  enormously  for  the  short  time 
remaining  as  to  compensate  them  for  soon  losing  their  chance. 

If  Tweed  saw  this  utterance,  he  must  have  dropped  a 
contemptuous  chuckle  over  it.  He  was  quite  resolved  to 
steal  "enormously,"  but  the  "short  time"  which  the  Post 
gave  him  proved  a  good  three  years.  Far  from  being 
desperate,  the  Ring  was  just  getting  its  hand  in.  The 
graft  on  the  armories,  which  the  Post  accurately  esti- 
mated at  already  a  half  million,  ultimately  reached  three 
millions,  and  the  graft  on  the  courthouse,  which  the  paper 
had  put  at  hundreds  of  thousands,  rose  steadily  until  it 
totaled  $9,000,000.  Tweed  was  attaining  more  and 
more  power  as  the  year  1869  opened.  He  had  just  been 
elected  to  the  State  Senate,  and  could  now  personally 
superintend  every  item  of  the  Ring's  machinations  at 
Albany,  while  his  friend  A.  Oakey  Hall  was  just  taking 
his  seat  as  Mayor. 

The  Evening  Post  was  quite  likely  right  in  its  conten- 
tion that  a  new  and  truly  good  Charter  would  even  at 
this  date  have  awakened  a  new  interest  in  city  affairs,  and 
a  spasm  of  reform;  but  a  good  Charter  it  was  impossible 
to  get.  With  his  usual  shrewdness,  Tweed  at  once  pre- 
pared to  use  the  movement  for  a  better  form  of  city  gov- 
ernment to  make  his  position  secure. 

When  the  legislative  session  of  January,  1870,  began 
— the  first  Legislature  in  twenty-four  years  to  be  con- 
trolled by  the  Democrats — it  was  generally  agreed  that 
the  city  would  be  given  another  Charter.  The  Tweed 
Ring  was  preparing  one;  the  Young  Democrats,  an  unsav- 
ory group  who  opposed  Tweed  on  strictly  selfish  grounds, 


APARTMENT  HOUSES  AND  TWEED    381 

were  preparing  one;  and  the  reform  element  represented 
by  the  Union  League  Club,  the  Evening  Post,  the  Trib- 
une, and  the  World,  wanted  one.  "The  true  democratic 
doctrine  of  city  government,"  insisted  the  Post,  "is  that 
power  ought  to  be  simple,  responsibility  undivided  and 
direct."  The  proposed  Charter  of  the  anti-Ring  Dem- 
ocrats, the  so-called  "huckleberry  Charter"  of  the  "hay- 
loft-and-cheesepress"  up-Staters,  was  defeated.  Then, 
at  the  beginning  of  February,  Tweed  and  Sweeney  sud- 
denly sprang  their  own  instrument,  and  made  it  clear  that 
they  would  push  it  rapidly  through.  It  was  patently 
vicious.  As  early  as  Feb.  3,  the  Evening  Post  attached 
it  sharply.  It  pointed  out  that  it  embodied  none  of  that 
simplification  of  powers  and  responsibility  which  the 
Post  had  long  advocated;  that  too  many  city  departments 
would  be  governed  by  boards,  not  single  heads;  that  the 
Common  Council  retained  its  executive  functions;  and 
that  the  four-year  term  which  it  gave  the  Mayor  and  his 
lieutenants  was,  under  the  circumstances,  dangerous. 

But  four  days  later  a  far  more  powerful  attack  was 
published.  The  Evening  Post  would  in  any  event  have 
kept  up  its  campaign  with  growing  vigor,  but  it  had  found 
an  unexpected  helper  and  adviser  in  Samuel  J.  Tilden. 
Bryant  later  wrote : 

It  was  in  February  of  the  year  1870  that  Samuel  J.  Tilden 
came  and  desired  an  interview  with  the  senior  editor.  .  .  .  He 
seemed  moved  from  his  usual  calm  and  quiet  demeanour.  His 
errand,  he  said,  related  to  the  Charter  which  Tweed  and  his  crea- 
tures were  trying  to  get  enacted  into  law.  If  that  should  happen, 
it  would  give  the  city,  with  all  the  powers  of  its  government,  into 
the  hands  of  men  who  felt  no  restraint  of  conscience  and  who 
would  plunder  it  without  stint.  The  city  would  be  ruined,  he 
said,  if  this  Charter,  conceived  with  a  special  design  to  make 
speculation  easy,  passed,  and  it  was  altogether  important  that  the 
Evening  Post  should  resist  its  passage  with  all  the  power  of  argu- 
ment which  it  possessed,  and  prevent  it  if  possible.  He  then,  with 
his  usual  perspicacity,  pointed  out  the  contrivances  for  misusing 
the  public  funds  which  were  embodied  in  the  bill.  .  .  .  The 
Evening  Post  did  not  require  Mr.  Tilden's  exhortations  to  oppose 


382  THE  EVENING  POST 

the  bill,  but  we  proceeded,  by  the  help  of  the  additional   light 
given  us,  to  hold  up  the  Charter  to  the  severest  censure. 

The  Post  in  a  series  of  editorials  absolutely  riddled  the 
Tweed  Charter.  It  aimed  its  main  fire,  however,  at  the 
heart  of  the  document — its  creation  of  a  Board  of  Spe- 
cial Audit  with  financial  powers  so  huge  that  millions 
could  be  stolen  by  the  mere  nod  of  four  or  five  men,  and 
so  well  entrenched  that  only  by  new  State  legislation 
could  these  men  be  reached.  This  Board  was  to  be  com- 
posed of  the  Mayor,  Controller,  Chamberlain,  and  Pres- 
idents of  the  Supervisors  and  Aldermen,  so  that  Tweed, 
Oakey  Hall,  and  Connolly  were  certain  of  places  on  it. 
It  would  seem  that  those  who  ran  might  have  read  the 
perils  concealed  in  the  Tweed  Charter;  while  the  bribery 
employed  to  pass  it  was  so  colossal  that  it  is  hard  to 
understand  how  it  was  even  temporarily  concealed.  It 
is  believed  that  a  million  was  spent  in  corrupting  legis- 
lators; the  chairman  of  the  conference  committee  on  the 
Charter  admitted  later  that  he  took  $10,000;  and  it  was 
shown  that  Tweed  bought  five  Republican  Senators  for 
$40,000  each.  Yet  many  of  the  best  people  of  New 
York  looked  on  complacently  while  the  Republicans 
joined  hands  with  the  Democrats,  and  the  Charter 
passed  both  houses  by  enormous  majorities. 

The  Evening  Post  was  powerfully  aided  in  combating 
this  iniquity  by  Manton  Marble  of  the  World  and  Dana 
of  the  Sun.  The  Tribune  was  upon  the  same  side,  though 
Greeley  did  not  fail  to  indulge  his  unsurpassed  faculty 
for  wabbling;  he  went  to  Albany  and  said  that  if  he 
could  not  get  the  Charter  amended,  he  would  take  it  as 
it  was,  while  his  journal  continued  attacking  it.  The 
Union  League  Club  energetically  opposed  it.  But  the 
Citizens  Association,  under  the  universally  esteemed 
Peter  Cooper,  was  convinced  that  the  Ring  had  become 
conservative,  and  would  now  stop  stealing  and  take  the 
side  of  the  taxpayers.  The  Times,  with  similar  blind- 
ness, hailed  the  passage  of  the  Tweed  Charter  as  a  signal 
victory  for  reform,  saying  (April  6)  : 


APARTMENT  HOUSES  AND  TWEED    383 

If  it  shall  be  put  into  operation  by  Mayor  Hall,  with  that 
regard  for  the  general  welfare  which  we  have  reason  to  anticipate, 
we  feel  sure  that  our  citizens  will  have  reason  to  count  yester- 
day's work  in  the  Legislature  as  most  salutary  and  important. 

And  Tweed  saw  that  Oakey  Hall  lost  no  time  In  ap- 
pointing him  head  of  the  Department  of  Public  Works, 
and  otherwise  putting  It  Into  operation. 

Indeed,  the  Boss  now  stood  at  the  apex  of  his  career. 
One  of  his  creatures,  John  T.  Hoffman,  was  Governor, 
another  was  Mayor,  and  he,  Hall,  and  Connolly  formed 
a  majority  of  the  Board  of  Special  Audit,  with  authority, 
as  the  Post  said,  "to  do  almost  what  they  please."  Al- 
most penniless  ten  years  before,  Tweed  now  had  a  for- 
tune of  more  than  $3,000,000,  and  his  career  had  entered 
upon  a  period  of  dazzling  splendor.  He  acquired  a  fine 
mansion  at  Fifth  Avenue  and  Forty-fourth  Street,  and 
at  his  summer  home  at  Greenwich,  Conn.,  the  very  stalls 
of  his  horses  were  mahogany.  He  had  flashing  equipages 
and  gave  glittering  dinners;  he  and  his  retainers  fitted 
up  the  Amerlcus  Club,  In  Greenwich,  where  each  member 
had  a  private  room.  In  princely  style;  and  when  his  daugh- 
ter was  married  that  summer  her  gown  cost  $4,000  and 
she  received  gifts  worth  $100,000.  The  voters  most 
Impressed  by  all  this  were  the  poor  voters  among  whom 
In  winter  Tweed  scattered  gifts  of  coal,  provisions,  and 
money.  The  Ring  did  not  forget  Its  family  connections. 
Not  even  President  Grant,  remarked  the  Post,  had  such 
a  taste  for  nepotism.  One  of  Tweed's  sons  was  Assistant 
District  Attorney  and  another  was  Commissioner  of 
Riverside  Drive;  while  four  of  Sweeney's  relatives  had 
fat  places. 

As  Samuel  J.  TUden  later  sarcastically  noted,  the 
Times  was  unlucky  enough  on  May  5,  1870,  to  boast  of 
"reforms  made  possible  by  the  recent  legislation  at  Al- 
bany." That  May  5  was  the  day  on  which  the  Board 
of  Special  Audit  ordered  payment  of  $6,312,500  on  the 
Court  House,  ninety  per  cent,  of  It  graft. 

But  such  barefaced  looting  of  the  city  as  had  now  been 
carried  on  for  years  could  not  be  continued  without  arous- 


384  THE  EVENING  POST 

ing  public  anger,  and  the  storm  soon  burst.  The  share 
of  graft  which  the  Ring  exacted  from  public  contractors 
had  already  been  shoved  up  to  85  per  cent.  The  frauds 
perpetrated  in  the  city  election  of  May  17,  1870,  were 
so  flagrant  that  observers  gasped.  A  suspicion  that  the 
city's  debts  were  rising  by  leaps  and  bounds  grew  into 
conviction.  The  Evening  Post  and  Tribune  continued 
their  warnings  and  attacks,  and  early  in  the  fall  the  Times 
fully  joined  them. 

How  long  these  assaults  would  have  continued  essen- 
tially futile,  had  it  not  been  for  a  dramatic  episode,  it  is 
hard  to  say.  This  episode  grew  out  of  the  fact  that  the 
Ring,  being  greedy,  made  enemies  in  its  own  camp.  One 
of  the  chief  was  James  O'Brien,  who  was  sheriff  1867-70, 
and  had  a  large  personal  following.  O'Brien  distributed 
his  money  lavishly  while  he  held  office,  and  retired  from 
a  post  worth  $100,000  a  year  as  poor  as  when  he  entered 
it.  To  recompense  himself,  he  presented  a  claim  for 
$200,000  to  the  Board  of  Special  Audit,  and  this  body, 
which  did  not  fear  him  now  that  he  was  out  of  office, 
rejected  it.  Tweed  knew  that  it  was  a  mistake,  but  was 
overruled.  It  happened  that  in  December,  1870,  the 
County  Auditor,  a  loyal  servant  to  Tweed,  was  fatally 
injured  in  a  sleigh  accident,  and  as  a  result  of  some  trans- 
fers which  followed,  one  of  O'Brien's  friends  obtained  a 
position  in  the  County  Bookkeeper's  office.  There  he 
discovered  the  bogus  accounts  used  in  stealing  millions 
during  the  erection  of  the  Courthouse,  and  placed  tran- 
scripts of  them  in  O'Brien^s  hands.  In  vengeful  spirit, 
the  ex-sheriff  in  the  early  summer  of  1871  brought  them  to 
the  office  of  the  latest  recruit  to  the  anti-Tweed  ranks, 
the  Times,  and  the  Times  made  admirable  use  of  them. 

It  would  be  pleasant  for  historians  of  journalism  to 
record  that  one  of  the  great  New  York  newspapers  itself 
conducted  an  investigation  into  Tweed's  looting  of  the 
city  and  fully  exposed  him.  If  any  managing  editor  could 
claim  the  credit  which  has  to  be  given  an  overturned  sleigh 
and  a  jealous  ex-sheriff,  he  would  be  immortal.  Why, 
when  the  Evening  Post  and  Tribune  had  been  attacking 


APARTMENT  HOUSES  AND  TWEED    385 

the  regime  of  graft  for  years,  did  they  not  cut  into  the 
tumor?  We  may  lay  part  of  the  blame  on  journalistic 
timidity,  and  the  lack  at  that  time  of  a  tradition  of  inves- 
tigative enterprise  in  journalism;  but  the  chief  answer 
lies  in  the  care  with  which  the  Ring  guarded  its  secrets. 
It  had  seemed  for  a  moment  the  previous  fall  to  invite 
inquiry.  Connolly,  with  a  parade  of  injured  virtue,  asked 
six-eminent  business  men — William  B.  Astor,  Moses 
Taylor,  Marshall  O.  Roberts,  and  others — to  inspect  his 
books,  and  these  six,  who  commanded  public  confidence, 
had  reported  on  Nov.  i  "that  the  financial  affairs  of  the 
city,  under  the  charge  of  the  Controller,  are  administered 
in  a  correct  and  faithful  manner."  But  the  Ring's  real 
misdeeds  were  kept  under  cover. 

The  vigor  with  which  the  Post  attacked  the  Ring  slack- 
ened during  the  early  months  of  1871.  Bryant  was  en- 
grossed in  his  translations  from  Homer.  Nordhoff  quar- 
reled with  Isaac  Henderson  over  what  the  latter  thought 
the  undue  violence  of  his  denunciation  of  Tweed,  was 
offered  a  long  vacation  with  pay  on  the  understanding 
that  he  should  look  for  another  place,  and  resigned  the 
managing  editorship  to  Charlton  Lewis,  who  for  a  time 
was  more  cautious  of  utterance.  But  by  the  ist  of  July 
we  find  the  Evening  Post  as  vehement  as  ever. 

It  was  particularly  aroused  against  the  Ring  by  the 
bloody  Orange  Riot  of  July  12,  1871,  one  of  the  most 
disgraceful  of  the  city's  outbreaks.  The  previous  year 
an  unprovoked  attack  had  been  made  upon  an  Orange 
picnic  at  Elm  Park  by  some  Irish  Catholics  who  broke 
down  the  fence,  assailed  men,  women,  and  children  with 
revolvers  and  stones,  killed  thre'e  outright,  wounded 
eleven  mortally,  and  seriously  injured  forty  or  fifty.  The 
Orangemen  in  1871  prepared  to  celebrate  Boyne  Day  by 
a  parade,  as  they  had  a  perfect  right  to  do,  and  by  July 
10  it  was  rumored  that  the  hooligans  meant  to  attack 
them  again.  That  day  the  Post  published  a  warning 
editorial,  saying  the  city  authorities  must  prepare  to  quell 
the  mob  "by  the  quickest  means."  But  Mayor  Hall  and 
Superintendent  of  Police  Kelso  issued  orders  that  the 


386  THE  EVENING  POST 

police  should  disperse,  not  the  assailants,  but  the  Orange 
procession;  and  this  made  the  Post  furious.  It  meant 
that  the  Tammany  Ring,  ''with  a  cynical  contempt  for 
law  and  order,  have  taken  the  part  of  the  mob."  Very 
properly,  Gov.  Hoffman  overruled  Mayor  Hall,  and 
directed  that  the  Orangemen  be  protected  In  any  lawful 
assemblage.  On  the  12th  the  parade  formed,  and  began 
its  march  under  a  strong  escort  of  police  and  militia.  The 
more  turbulent  Irish  element  was  out  in  force,  lining  the 
route  threateningly.  As  the  parade  passed  along  Eighth 
Avenue  near  Twenty-sixth  Street,  a  shot  was  fired  by  an 
Irishman  from  a  second  story  window  at  the  Ninth  Regi- 
ment, and  was  the  signal  for  other  shots  and  a  shower 
of  brickbats  and  stones.  The  order  to  fire  was  given, 
the  Eighty-fourth  Regiment — according  to  the  Post — 
was  the  first  to  respond,  and  before  the  mob  was  dis- 
persed the  street  was  full  of  the  dead  and  dying.  The 
Evening  Post  had  nothing  but  praise  for  the  militia, 
nothing  but  abuse  for  the  city  government.  Bryant 
penned  a  ringing  editorial  upon  Tweed : 

New  York,  like  every  great  city,  contains  a  certain  number  of 
idle,  ignorant,  and  lawless  people.  But  these  classes  are  not  dan- 
gerous to  our  peace,  either  by  their  numbers  or  by  their  organiza- 
tion. They  are  dangerous  and  injurious  only  because  they  are 
the  tools  of  Tweed,  Sweeney,  Oakey  Hall,  Connolly,  and  the 
Ring  of  corruptionists  of  whom  these  four  persons  are  the  leaders. 
Depose  the  Tammany  Ring  and  all  danger  from  the  "dangerous 
classes"  will  cease.  It  is  because  these  know  themselves  to  be 
supported  by  the  Ring,  because  they  are  employed  when  they  want 
employment,  salaried  when  they  are  idle,  succored  when  they 
commit  petty  crimes,  pardoned  when  they  are  convicted,  and  flat- 
tered at  all  times  by  the  Tammany  Ring,  that  they  have  become 
so  audacious  and  restless.  .  .  . 

The  Tammany  Ring  purposely  panders  to  the  worst  and  most 
dangerous  elements  and  passions  of  our  population.  It  cares 
nothing  for  liberty,  nothing  for  the  rights  of  the  citizen,  nothing 
for  the  public  peace,  for  law  and  order;  it  cares  only  to  fasten 
itself  upon  the  city,  and  chooses  to  use,  for  that  end,  the  most 
corrupt  and  demoralizing  means,  and  the  most  lawless  and  dan- 
gerous part  of  our  population.     It  is  the  Head  of  the  Mob.     It 


APARTMENT  HOUSES  AND  TWEED    387 

rules  by,  and  through,  and  for  the  Mob;    and  unless  it  is  struck 
down  New  York  has  not  yet  seen  the  worst  part  of  its  history. 

It  was  soon  struck  down.  The  Times  began  the  ver- 
batim publication  of  O'Brien's  evidence  on  July  22,  1871, 
with  a  masterly  analysis  of  It.  The  Evening  Post^s  edito- 
rial that  afternoon  took  the  view  that  the  Times^s  evi- 
dence was  In  all  probability  valid  to  the  last  figure,  that 
the  Ring  could  not  disprove  it,  and  that  It  made  the 
refusal  of  the  authorities  to  show  their  accounts  intol- 
erable. During  the  seven  days  that  the  Times  required 
for  publishing  all  of  O'Brien's  transcripts  the  Post  car- 
ried half  a  dozen  editorials  pressing  this  opinion. 

However,  the  "secret  accounts"  so  courageously 
brought  out  by  the  Times  offered  little  more  than  the 
starting  point  of  the  exposure.  They  consisted  of  the 
dates  and  amounts  of  certain  payments  by  Controller 
Connolly,  their  objects,  and  the  names  of  the  men  who 
received  them.  The  enormous  sums  disbursed,  taken  in 
connection  with  the  brevity  of  the  time,  the  Inadequacy  of 
the  objects,  and  the  recurrence  of  the  same  names  as  re- 
cipients, made  the  public  certain  that  the  Ring  had  stolen 
on  a  colossal  scale.  A  single  carpenter,  for  example,  had 
been  paid  $360,000  for  one  month's  repairs  on  the  new 
Courthouse.  But  as  yet  there  was  no  legal  proof  against 
any  one  official.  There  was  no  evidence,  sufficient  to  sus- 
tain a  civil  or  criminal  action,  which  disclosed  the  prin- 
cipals behind  the  bogus  accounts.  Moreover,  redress 
could  not  be  sought  from  the  Aldermen,  who  were  allies 
of  the  Ring,  and  powerless  under  the  new  Charter  any- 
way; from  the  District  Attorney,  who  was  Tweed's 
friend;  from  the  grand  juries,  which  were  packed;  or 
from  the  Legislature,  which  was  not  in  session.  Tweed 
might  well  exclaim,  "What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?" 

The  Times,  the  Post,  and  other  papers  could  do  no 
more  than  continue  their  attacks  on  the  Ring,  call  for 
exhibition  of  the  city's  books,  and  express  their  faith  that 
in  the  November  election  punishment  would  be  made 
certain  by  the  choice  of  a  reform  Legislature  and  a  zeal- 


388  THE  EVENING  POST 

ous  Attorney-General.  Several  journals  did  less.  The 
World,  for  example,  was  so  far  misled  by  Democratic 
partisanship  as  to  assume  an  attitude  of  apology  for  the 
Ring.  But  the  work  of  the  Times  and  O'Brien  bore  its 
first  fruit  when  on  Sept.  4  a  great  city  mass-meeting  was 
held  at  which  a  Committee  of  Seventy  was  appointed; 
and  a  more  important  result  followed  ten  days  later  when 
Controller  Connolly,  after  an  interview  with  Tilden, 
turned  traitor  to  the  Ring,  and  tried  to  save  himself  by 
resigning  and  deputing  the  reformer,  Andrew  H.  Green, 
to  take  his  place. 

For  the  fight  was  won,  as  the  Evening  Post  recognized, 
when  the  party  of  good  government  gained  the  Control- 
ler's books.  Tilden  obtained  the  legal  opinion  of  Charles 
O'Conor,  whose  name  carried  the  greatest  weight,  af- 
firming the  right  of  Mr.  Green  to  hold  the  office,  and 
gave  it  to  the  Evening  Post  of  Sept.  18  for  exclusive  pub- 
lication. It  caused  Mayor  Hall  to  abandon  instantly  his 
intention  of  trying  to  eject  Mr.  Green.  With  the  Con- 
trollership  in  their  hands,  the  reformers  were  able  to 
protect  the  city  records  from  destruction,  to  undertake 
their  careful  examination,  and  to  find  the  clues  to  judicial 
proofs  lying  in  the  Broadway  Bank  and  elsewhere — clues 
of  which  Tilden  made  admirable  use.  "New  York  will 
carry  down  through  the  memory  and  history  of  the  com- 
ing years,"  said  the  Post,  "the  fact  that  Mr.  Tilden 
threw  a  flood  of  light  into  the  widened  breach  of  this 
fortress  of  fraud,  and  that  he  and  Mr.  Havemeyer,  as 
the  only  means  of  saving  the  city  from  bankruptcy,  thrust 
perforce  .  .  .  Mr.  Andrew  H.  Green,  whom  they  knew 
to  be  of  stern  and  honest  stuff,  into  the  charge  of  the 
depleted  treasury."  It  was  only  a  few  months  before 
the  leading  Ring  members  were  in  jail  or  exile. 


CHAPTER  SEVENTEEN 

INDEPENDENCE  IN  POLITICS:  THE  ELECTIONS  OF 
'72   AND   '76 

If  any  one  had  told  Bryant  and  Godwin  In  1865  that 
within  a  half  dozen  years  the  party  which  led  the  crusade 
against  slavery  to  victory,  and  which  had  carried  the 
nation  through  the  furnace  of  the  war,  would  seem  intol- 
erable to  many  for  its  moral  laxity  and  inefficiency,  he 
would  not  have  been  believed.  It  was  then  the  party  of 
youthful  idealism,  of  enthusiasm  in  a  great  moral  cause, 
of  vigorous  achievement.  Yet  in  1872  the  Evening  Post 
all  but  abandoned  the  Republican  banner — it  would  have 
done  so  had  the  reform  elements  found  a  fit  leader;  and 
in  1876  the  temptation  to  secede  was  presented  In  a  new 
and  equally  strong  form.  Though  It  stayed  with  the 
party.  In  neither  campaign  did  the  paper  surrender  a  jot 
of  its  Independence,  and  In  neither  did  It  give  the  Repub- 
licans enthusiastic  support. 

There  was  but  one  tenable  position  In  the  election  of 
1868  for  a  journal  which  had  supported  Lincoln  and  the 
Union  throughout  the  war — to  follow  Grant;  for  the 
Democrats  could  not  be  trusted  with  Reconstruction, 
while  they  offended  all  believers  In  sound  finance  by  pro- 
posing to  pay  the  war  bonds  In  greenbacks.  The  Evening 
Post  declared  Itself  for  Grant  on  Dec.  2,  1867,  and  pub- 
lished frequent  editorials  advocating  his  nomination  until 
It  took  place  six  months  later.  It  expressed  a  whole- 
hearted faith  In  his  courage,  patient  good  temper,  admin- 
istrative energy,  and  judgment  of  subordinates.  This 
belief  was  shared  by  others  as  discerning  as  Bryant. 
Lowell  Informed  Leslie  Stephen  that  Grant  had  always 
chosen  able  lieutenants,  that  he  was  not  pliable,  and  that 
he  would  make  good  use  of  his  opportunity  to  be  an 
independent  President. 

389 


390  THE  EVENING  POST 

The  cordiality  of  the  Evening  Post  for  Grant  was  in- 
creased by  its  distaste  for  his  Democratic  rival.  Bryant 
wrote  to  his  friend  Salmon  P.  Chase  before  the  Demo- 
cratic Convention,  urging  him  to  take  a  receptive  atti- 
tude, and  Chase  replied  hopefully;  but  it  was  Horatio 
Seymour  who  obtained  the  nomination,  and  for  Seymour 
the  Post  had  only  contempt.  A  mere  local  politician,  it 
termed  him;  it  recalled  how  as  the  "copperhead"  Gov- 
ernor of  New  York  he  had  displayed  a  plentiful  lack  of 
both  dignity  and  sagacity,  and  it  believed  him  a  weak 
creature,  who  would  be  controlled  by  dangerous  men  like 
George  H.  Pendleton  and  Francis  Blair. 

The  Times  was  heartily  for  Grant,  and  so  was  the 
Sun,  Charles  A.  Dana  helping  write  the  campaign  biog- 
raphy of  him.  The  Tribune  was  of  course  loyally  Repub- 
lican. It  had  to  forget  a  good  many  rash — though,  as  it 
proved,  too  nearly  true — words  of  the  previous  year, 
when,  irritated  by  Grant's  loyalty  to  President  Johnson, 
it  had  said  that  his  prominence  in  politics  was  due  merely 
to  "the  dazzling  and  seductive  splendor  of  military 
fame,"  and  that  he  would  make  "a  timid,  hesitating,  un- 
sympathetic President."  But  the  Tribune  was  used  to 
retracting  impolitic  judgments,  and  was  soon  fighting 
with  the  JVorld  in  that  hammer  and  tongs  style  of  which 
Greeley  and  Manton  Marble  were  masters. 

The  disillusionment  that  followed  so  rapidly  upon 
Grant's  inauguration  was  bitter  to  the  whole  of  the 
decent  Republican  press.  It  is  one  of  the  most  creditable 
chapters  in  American  journalism  that  so  many  news- 
papers— Greeley's  Tribune,  Horace  White's  Chicago 
Tribune,  Samuel  Bowles's  Springfield  Republican,  Murat 
Halstead's  Cincinnati  Commercial,  and  the  Evening  Post 
— had  the  courage  to  assert  their  independence  of  the 
Republican  party  when  it  fell  into  unworthy  hands. 
Grant's  failure  was  more  bitter  to  the  Evening  Post,  the 
Springfield  Republican,  and  other  low-tariff  journals  than 
it  was  to  the  high-tariff  New  York  Tribune;  it  was  more 
painful  to  the  Evening  Post  and  other  organs  which  ad- 
vocated a  mild  Southern  policy  than  to  the  Nation,  which 


ELECTIONS  OF  '72  AND  '76  391 

advocated  a  fairly  severe  one.  But  they  all  took  a  pro- 
testant  attitude  which  was  far  in  advance  of  that  of  the 
general  public. 

All  administrations  begin  with  a  sort  of  political  honey- 
moon, in  which  every  one  gives  the  new  President  a  fair 
field,  and  criticism  is  temporarily  reserved.  For  some 
months  the  Post  tried  hard  to  believe  that  Grant  was 
destined  to  solve  satisfactorily  all  the  problems  be- 
queathed him  by  Andrew  Johnson.  It  praised  his  inau- 
gural speech  highly.  The  principal  task  before  him,  it 
declared,  was  to  get  rid  of  the  bummers,  camp-followers, 
and  contractors : 

The  first  and  especial  work  which  Gen.  Grant  undertakes  is 
to  clear  the  government  of  those  who  take  its  money  without 
giving  an  equivalent;  lobbyists,  railway  projectors,  speculators  in 
grants  of  every  form,  whisky  thieves,  revenue  swindlers,  gold 
sharks,  and  the  whole  train  of  useless  and  costly  hangers-on. 
These  men  are  no  longer  an  outside  band  of  robbers  who  are 
unimportant  enough  to  be  disregarded.  They  have  grow^n  to  be 
a  great  power ;  if  united,  perhaps  they  would  be  the  greatest  polit- 
ical power  in  the  land.  It  is  a  work  scarcely  second  to  that  of 
destroying  Lee's  army  itself,  to  destroy  the  system  of  plunder 
which  now  threatens  our  institutions.      (Feb.  9,   1869.) 

The  task  second  in  importance,  the  Evening  Post  be- 
lieved, was  a  sharp  reduction  in  the  wartime  tariff,  which 
David  A.  Wells,  Special  Commissioner  of  Revenue,  had 
just  shown  to  be  miraculously  effective  in  making  the  rich 
richer  and  the  poor  poorer.  Under  it,  said  Bryant,  the 
pig-iron  manufacturers  doubled  their  capital  annually, 
while  the  workmen  lived  worse  than  before;  one  of  the 
two  companies  which  enjoyed  a  monopoly  of  salt  had 
earned  $4,600,000  on  a  capital  of  $600,000  in  seven 
years;  and  the  lumber  companies,  Canadian  competition 
being  shut  out,  were  piling  up  enormous  fortunes  while 
housing  grew  ever  costlier.  The  Post  demanded  also  a 
revision  of  the  uneconomic  wartime  revenue  system,  un- 
der which  16,000  different  articles  were  taxed;  they 
might  advantageously  be  reduced  to  fewer  than  200.  It 
asked  for  measures  paving  the  way  to  a  resumption  of 


392  THE  EVENING  POST 

specie  payments,  such  as  the  accumulation  of  a  large  gold 
reserve  in  the  Treasury,  and  the  passage  of  legislation 
authorizing  contracts  to  pay  in  gold.  Railway  jobbery, 
involving  the  wasteful  distribution  of  the  national  do- 
main, should  be  stopped,  while  civil  service  reform  was 
prominent  in  the  Evening  Post  programme.  Of  course, 
it  wished  military  rule  in  the  South  brought  to  an  end  as 
speedily  as  possible,  and  the  States  placed  upon  their  old 
footing. 

But  all  of  Bryant's  and  Parke  Godwin's  high  expecta- 
tions failed.  The  Post  thought  Grant's  Cabinet  weak, 
and  was  especially  shocked  by  his  choice  of  the  protec- 
tionist George  S.  Boutwell  to  be  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury. It  was  equally  offended  by  the  selection  of  Elihu 
Washburne  to  be  Minister  to  France,  and  Gen.  Daniel 
Sickles  to  Spain — Spanish  relations  then  being  highly 
important  on  account  of  Cuba.  There  was  no  change 
in  the  tariff  until  1870,  when  a  new  act  reduced  the  duties 
on  only  one  important  protected  commodity,  pig  iron, 
while  it  increased  them  on  a  half  dozen.  The  revenue 
system  was  left  in  its  complex  iniquity.  Secretary  Bout- 
well  did  nothing  effective  to  bring  the  nation  back  to  a 
specie  basis,  while  the  Evening  Post  sharply  condemned 
his  action  in  the  ''Black  Friday"  crisis  (September,  1869) 
in  selling  $4,000,000  worth  of  gold  without  notice,  and 
thus  breaking  the  corner  in  gold  which  Jay  Gould  and 
James  Fisk,  jr.,  were  trying  to  build  up.  This,  it  said, 
was  taking  sides  unnecessarily  in  a  battle  between  two 
sets  of  gamblers,  when  the  Treasury  had  always  before 
acted  on  the  principle  that  all  sales  of  gold  should  be 
public,  with  ample  advance  notice  of  the  amounts  to  be 
sold,  and  should  be  ordered  solely  upon  public  grounds, 
without  reference  to  speculation.  Reconstruction,  going 
from  bad  to  worse,  was  by  1870  a  confused  mixture  of 
grasping  carpet-baggers,  downtrodden  whites,  corrupt 
Legislatures,  and  ignorant,  poverty-stricken  negro  voters. 
Grant's  one  marked  display  of  energy  had  been  in  an 
effort  to  force  the  annexation  of  Santo  Domingo,  a  meas- 
ure which  the  Post  abominated. 


ELECTIONS  OF  '72  AND  '76  393 

Two  months  after  Grant's  administration  began,  the 
Chicago  Tribune  harshly  attacked  him.  The  Post  then 
pleaded  for  patience,  but  by  midsummer  of  1870  it  was 
growing  restive. 

The  last  straw  for  the  Evening  Post  was  Grant's  dis- 
missal of  his  two  ablest  Cabinet  members.  He  asked  for 
the  resignation  of  Attorney-General  Ebenezer  Hoar  in 
June,  1870,  sacrificing  him  for  the  votes  of  Southern 
Senators  promised  in  behalf  of  the  Santo  Domingo  treaty. 
Four  months  later.  Gen.  Jacob  Cox  was  forced  out  of  the 
Interior  Department  simply  because  the  politicians 
wished  to  raid  it  for  spoils.  Already  Sumner  had  been 
deprived,  by  Grant's  orders,  of  the  chairmanship  of  the 
Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations,  a  slap  in  the 
face  to  the  great  body  of  liberal  and  intellectual  North- 
erners who  had  admired  Sumner  ever  since  he  had  come 
forward  as  an  anti-slavery  leader.  The  dismissal  of 
Motley  from  the  post  of  Minister  to  England  in  the  fall 
of  1870  angered  Bryant,  as  it  did  all  other  American  men 
of  letters.  When  Secretary  Cox  resigned,  the  Post 
headed  its  editorial  (Oct.  31,  1870)  :  "General  Grant's 
Unconditional  Surrender" — meaning  his  surrender  to  the 
politicians: 

Not  even  Buchanan's  interference  in  Kansas  was  more  gross 
and  unblushing  than  President  Grant's  attempt  to  coerce  the  Mis- 
souri Republicans  to  do  his  will  and  not  their  own.  No  President 
except  Andrew  Johnson  has  ever  so  openly  tried,  by  wholesale 
removals  from  office  and  by  the  appointment  of  his  favorites,  to 
impose  his  "policy"  upon  the  party. 

The  letters  of  General  Cox,  now  published,  show  that  in  the 
practice  of  the  smaller  devices  of  politicians  the  President  has 
been  no  less  ready.  The  Secretary,  who  came  into  the  Cabinet 
as  the  especial  friend  and  representative  of  civil  service  reform, 
is  forced  to  leave  the  Cabinet  because  the  President  insists,  con- 
trary to  Gen.  Cox's  desires,  upon  letting  political  committees  levy 
tribute  upon  the  poor  clerks  in  the  Interior  Department. 

Three  days  later,  under  the  caption  "The  President 
and  His  Policy,"  the  Post  joined  those  organs — the  Chi- 


394  THE  EVENING  POST 

cago   Tribune,  Springfield  Republican,  and  Dana's  and 
Greeley's  journals — which  had  already  declared  war: 

He  has  now  been  twenty  months  in  office,  and  if  we  look  back 
over  the  leading  and  most  conspicuous  acts  of  his  Administration, 
we  find  only  the  San  Domingo  treaty,  defeated  by  those  who 
would  gladly  support  him  in  everything  right  or  wise;  the  gross 
interference  with  the  elections  in  Missouri ;  and  the  disgrace — 
so  far  as  he  could  disgrace  them — of  Mr.  Hoar,  Mr.  Wells,  and 
Mr.  Cox.  That  is  a  record  of  which  General  Grant  will  not  be 
proud  in  those  days  of  retirement  from  public  life  which  await  him. 

The  Liberal  Republican  movement  in  the  East  began 
to  assume  shape  when  the  Free  Trade  League  called  a 
conference  upon  revenue  and  tariff  reform  in  New  York 
city  for  Nov.  22,  1870.  It  was  attended  by  Bryant, 
Schurz,  E.  L.  Godkin,  Horace  White,  Samuel  Bowles, 
Gen.  Cox,  former  Commissioner  Wells,  and  Charles 
Francis  Adams,  with  some  others.  The  first  five  named 
represented  respectively  the  Evening  Post,  the  St.  Louis 
JVestliche  Post,  the  Nation,  the  Chicago  Tribune,  and  the 
Springfield  Republican,  and  the  first  four  are  all  on  the 
list  of  editors  of  the  Evening  Post.  James  G.  Blaine, 
the  Speaker,  was  so  disturbed  by  this  conference  that  he 
journeyed  to  Chicago  to  tell  Horace  White  that  he  meant 
to  give  the  tariff  reformers  a  majority  of  the  Ways  and 
Means  Committee.  Meanwhile,  in  Missouri,  Carl  Schurz 
and  B.  Gratz  Brown  had  already  launched  their  insur- 
gent movement,  and  by  a  coalition  with  the  Democrats 
that  same  month  swept  the  State.  Everywhere  the  ele- 
ments in  favor  of  civil  service  reform,  fiscal  reform,  low 
tariff  and  cleaner  government  began  drawing  together. 

Just  how  far  should  the  Liberal  Republican  movement 
go?  Schurz  by  the  spring  of  1871  was  intent  upon  form- 
ing a  new  party,  while  men  like  Sumner  wished  to  stay 
within  the  old  party  and  reform  it.  The  Chicago  Trib- 
une, the  Springfield  Republican,  and  the  Cincinnati  Com- 
mercial were  soon  supporting  Schurz's  plan,  while  the 
Evening  Post  and  the  Nation  held  back.  They  were  sym- 
pathetic with  Liberal  Republicanism,  but  they  did  not 


ELECTIONS  OF  '72  AND  '76  395 

commit  themselves  to  It.  Bryant  was  as  reluctant  to  give 
up  his  Republican  allegiance  now  as  he  had  been  to  for- 
sake the  Democratic  standard  in  1844,  and  he  assailed 
the  Administration  without  assailing  the  party.  The  Post 
declared  in  March,  1871,  that  the  Republican  organiza- 
tion was  substantially  sound;  that  it  distrusted  Grant  and 
the  politicians,  but  knew  that  the  rank  and  file  had 
resisted  such  follies  as  the  deposition  of  Sumner  and  the 
Santo  Domingo  treaty.  Next  month,  after  the  Liberal 
gathering  at  Cincinnati,  it  defined  the  movement  as  in- 
tended only  "to  bring  back  the  Republican  party  to  sound 
and  constitutional  legislation."  It  would  have  been  a 
dramatic  display  of  independence  for  the  Post  to  have 
broken  with  the  regulars,  as  it  was  to  do  in  1884,  but 
the  event  showed  that  it  was  well  it  remained  lukewarm. 
When  the  Liberal  Republicans  shipwrecked  their  reform 
effort  by  naming  a  candidate  quite  unacceptable  to  the 
Post,  it  could  change  its  attitude  Instantly  from  sympathy 
to  hostility  and  derision. 

E.  L.  Godkin  relates  that  in  the  spring  of  1864  he 
was  Invited  to  a  breakfast  In  New  York  at  which  he 
found  Wendell  Phillips,  Bryant,  and  one  or  two  other 
men.  Greeley  entered  and  approached  the  host,  who 
was  standing  by  the  fire  talking  with  Bryant,  but  the  poet 
ignored  his  fellow-editor.  "Don't  you  know  Mr.  Gree- 
ley?" the  host  inquired  in  an  audible  whisper.  Bryant's 
whisper  came  back  more  audibly  still:  "No,  I  don't;  he's 
a  blackguard — he's  a  blackguard  I" 

This  prejudice  upon  Bryant's  part,  largely  identical 
with  the  prejudice  which  made  him  refuse  to  speak  to 
another  editor  whose  principles  and  personality  were  both 
offensive  to  him,  Thurlow  Weed,  had  Its  share  In  the 
Evening  Pastes  hostility  to  Greeley  when  the  Liberal 
Republicans  nominated  him  for  President.  Bryant  re- 
membered that  In  1849  Greeley  had  commenced  a  reply  to 
an  editorial  in  the  Post  with  the  words:  "You  lie,  vil- 
lain! wilfully,  wickedly,  basely  lie!"  It  must  also  be  con- 
sidered that  Greeley's  high  tariff  views  were  anathema  to 
the  Post,  that  his  readiness  to  haul  down  the  Union  flag 


396  THE  EVENING  POST 

at  various  critical  moments  In  the  Civil  War  had  pro- 
voked the  Indignation  of  other  editors,  and  that  his  ex- 
tremely radical  reconstruction  policy  had  offended  all 
moderate  organs. 

The  news  that  the  Liberal  Republican  Convention  had 
nominated  Greeley  for  President  was  telegraphed  to  New 
York  on  the  evening  of  May  3,  1 872.  Bryant  next  morn- 
ing was  late  in  reaching  the  office.  A  vigorous  discussion 
was  going  on,  says  Mr.  J.  Ranken  Towse,  over  the  char- 
acter of  the  editorial  comment  to  be  made.  "It  was 
ended  suddenly  by  the  entrance,  in  hot  haste,  of  Mr. 
Bryant,  who  said  briefly,  'I  will  attend  to  that  editorial 
myself,'  and  promptly  shut  himself  up  in  his  room.  The 
resultant  article — cool,  logical,  bitter,  but  not  violent — 
was  distinctive  In  its  animating  spirit  of  contemptuous 
scorn,  and  carried  a  sharp  sting  In  Its  closing  assertion 
that  in  the  case  of  a  candidate  for  the  highest  honor  at 
the  disposal  of  the  country,  It  was  essential  that  the  can- 
didate should  be,  at  least,  a  gentleman." 

W.  A.  Linn,  long  managing  editor  of  the  Evening 
Post,  saw  Bryant  a  moment.  "Well,"  the  poet  observed 
with  a  quiet  twinkle,  "there  are  some  good  points  In 
Grant's  Administration,  after  all." 

The  news  was  in  every  way  a  shock  to  the  paper. 
When  the  Liberal  Republican  Convention  opened,  the 
Post  had  been  filled  with  as  high  hopes  for  its  success  as 
those  entertained  by  the  Chicago  Tribune,  Cincinnati 
Commercial,  or  Springfield  Republican.  It  had  Implored 
the  leaders  to  make  their  enterprise  "a  movement  for  gen- 
uine reform,  and  not  a  mere  antagonism  to  persons-  and 
Administrations";  it  had  warned  them  that  they  must 
choose  a  strong  man  for  Presidential  nominee,  for  the 
people  admired  Grant's  strength  of  personality.  Judge 
David  Davis  was  not  sufficiently  a  statesman.  Gov.  B. 
Gratz  Brown  of  Missouri  lacked  experience,  and  "as  for 
Mr.  Greeley,  his  nomination  would  be  a  deathblow  to 
the  reform  movement,  because  he  Is  the  embodiment  of 
centralization  and  monopoly."  Its  favorites  were  Charles 
Francis  Adams,  Senator  Lyman  Trumbull  of  Illinois,  and 


ELECTIONS  OF  '72  AND  '76  397 

Gov.  John  M.  Palmer  of  that  State,  in  the  order  named. 
Had  either  of  the  first  two  been  named,  upon  an  accept- 
able platform,  the  Post  would  have  supported  him;  but 
not  the  erratic,  simple-minded  prophet  of  high  tariff, 
Greeley,  who,  the  Post^s  special  correspondent  at  the  Con- 
vention reported,  was  pushed  forward  by  a  combination 
of  politicians  against  the  reformers. 

Bryant's  editorial  was  one  of  two  in  the  Evening  Post 
that  day.  That  given  the  leading  position,  written  prob- 
ably by  Charlton  M.  Lewis,  was  entitled  "The  Fiasco  at 
Cincinnati,"  and  was  just  such  an  editorial  as  appeared 
In  dozens  of  other  disheartened  newspapers.  It  declared 
that  the  Convention,  so  big  with  promise,  had  gone  the 
way  of  many  a  similar  assemblage,  surrendering  Its  lofty 
principles  to  the  wirepullers.  The  Post*s  blow  from  the 
shoulder  was  struck  by  Bryant  in  the  second  column.  He 
gave  his  editorial  the  mild  title,  "Why  Mr.  Greeley 
Should  Not  Be  Supported  for  the  Presidency,"  but  each 
of  the  numbered  paragraphs  was  vitriolic. 

First,  said  Bryant,  Greeley  lacked  the  needed  courage, 
firmness,  and  consistency.  His  course  during  the  Civil 
War  had  been  one  prolonged  wabble,  which  at  its  best 
moments  was  irresolute,  and  at  Its  worst  was  cowardly. 
Second,  his  political  associates  were  so  bad  that  his  ad- 
ministration, If  he  were  elected,  could  not  escape  corrup- 
tion. Here  Bryant  referred  to  such  of  Greeley's  friends 
as  R.  E.  Fenton,  the  leader  of  those  New  York  city  Re- 
publicans, who,  leagued  with  the  Tammany  Ring,  had 
done  so  much  to  help  Tweed  do  business.  The  Times, 
which  had  exposed  Tweed,  vigorously  insisted  upon  the 
same  point.  The  third  objection,  wrote  Bryant,  was  that 
Greeley  had  no  settled  political  principles,  with  one  ex- 
ception, and  the  fourth  was  the  exception.  "He  is  a 
thorough-going,  bigoted  protectionist,  a  champion  of  one 
of  the  most  arbitrary  and  grinding  systems  of  monopoly 
ever  known  in  any  country."  When  in  1870  the  duty 
on  pig  Iron  was  reduced  from  $9  a  ton  to  $7,  Greeley 
had  told  Grant  that  he  would  make  it  $100  a  ton  If  he 
could.    The  fifth  objection  to  Greeley,  the  climax  of  the 


398  THE  EVENING  POST 

editorial,  lay  in  "the  grossness  of  his  manners,"  as  Bry- 
ant put  it.  "With  such  a  head  as  is  on  his  shoulders,  the 
affairs  of  the  nation  could  not,  under  his  direction,  be 
wisely  administered;  with  such  manners  as  his,  they  could 
not  be  administered  with  common  decorum."  By  this, 
Bryant  did  not  refer  to  Greeley's  slovenly  dress,  nor  to 
his  use  of  the  lie  direct,  but  meant  a  certain  Johnsonian 
grossness  which  he  thought  Greeley  permitted  himself  in 
the  drawing-room. 

Taken  as  a  whole,  the  editorial  was  a  regrettably  ex- 
treme attack  upon  a  man  who,  if  erratic  and  uncouth, 
was  also  the  soul  of  kindliness  and  sincerity;  and  Samuel 
Bowles  was  justified  in  complaining  that  the  Post  showed 
personal  feeling.  Yet  the  fierce  and  contemptuous  atti- 
tude of  Bryant  by  no  means  stood  isolated.  The  Times 
that  day  called  Greeley's  nomination  "a  sad  farce,"  said 
that  the  first  impulse  of  every  one  was  to  laugh,  and  de- 
clared that  "if  any  one  man  could  send  a  great  nation  to 
the  dogs,  that  man  is  Mr.  Greeley."  He  would  disor- 
ganize every  department,  commit  the  government  to 
every  crude  illusion  from  Fourierism  to  vegetarian- 
ism, and  embroil  it  with  every  foreign  country.  Schurz 
was  heartsick,  and  for  some  time  refused  to  support  the 
nominee,  while  the  German  leaders  and  newspapers,  from 
which  much  had  been  hoped,  were  almost  unanimously 
hostile.  In  a  number  of  States  independents  openly  repu- 
diated the  ticket.  E.  L.  Godkin,  of  the  Nation,  was 
totally  disgusted,  for  he  detested  Greeley's  high  tariff 
views.  He  had  written  as  early  as  1863  that  Greeley 
"has  no  great  grasp  of  mind,  no  great  political  insight," 
and  now  his  biting  pen  did  more  than  that  of  any  other 
writer  to  defeat  the  candidate. 

The  Atlantic  Monthly  promptly  fell  in  behind  Grant. 
Manton  Marble  of  the  World  had  watched  the  Cincin- 
nati Convention  with  a  hopefulness  equaling,  but  differ- 
ing from,  Bryant's.  Now  he  lashed  out  at  the  Conven- 
tion's mistake,  stayed  with  the  journal  long  enough  to 
express  wholehearted  dislike  of  Greeley,  and  then  retired 
so  that  the  World  might  give  him  unenthusiastic  support. 


ELECTIONS  OF  '72  AND  '76  399 

Harper^ s  Weekly  brought  out  the  absurdities  of  Gree- 
ley's candidacy  in  striking  fashion.  Thomas  Nast's 
cartoons  kept  the  old  editor  In  a  ridiculous  light  week 
after  week — now  devouring,  with  a  wry  face,  a  bowl  of 
boiling  porridge  labeled  ''My  own  words  and  deeds," 
now  at  his  Chappaqua  farm  seated  well  out  on  a  limb, 
which  he  was  earnestly  sawing  off  between  himself  and 
the  tree.  Greeley's  chief  assistance  in  New  York,  aside 
from  the  Tribune,  came  from  Dana  and  the  Sun;  indeed, 
Dana  had  come  out  for  his  eventual  nomination  as  early 
as  1868,  when  almost  no  one  was  thinking  of  it.  The 
other  Democratic  newspapers,  as  the  Express,  climbed 
rather  grumblingly  on  the  Greeley  bandwagon;  since 
Bennett's  death  the  Herald  had  not  been  of  their  number. 

For  a  time  the  Evening  Post,  in  its  intense  dissatisfac- 
tion with  the  candidate,  had  some  hope  that  another 
nomination  could  be  effected.  It  suggested  such  an  at- 
tempt, and  that  the  selection  be  made  by  an  assembly  of 
leaders,  not  left  to  the  "dangerous  machinery  of  a  con- 
vention." The  Free  Trade  League  made  itself  the  In- 
strument of  this  effort,  and  called  a  meeting  at  Stein- 
way  Hall  on  May  30,  to  be  presided  over  by  Bryant. 
Gen.  Jacob  Cox,  ex-Commissioner  Wells,  and  others  gave 
it  their  support,  but  the  gathering  came  to  nothing.  In 
June  the  Post  was  placed  definitely  behind  Grant.  The 
campaign  was  dismal  for  it,  as  for  all  other  conscientious 
journals.  It  was  impossible  for  even  the  Times  to  be 
enthusiastic  over  Grant,  or  even  Dana  over  Greeley.  The 
Evening  Post^s  attitude  toward  the  regular  Republican 
nominee  was  precisely  that  which  the  Springfield  Republi- 
can took  towards  the  Liberal  Republican  candidate. 
"Support  the  ticket,  but  don't  gush,"  Bowles  had  tele- 
graphed his  subordinates  from  Cincinnati.  How  far 
Bryant  was  from  abandoning  his  criticism  of  the  Presi- 
dent is  evident  from  an  August  editorial  entitled  "Grant's 
Real  Character." 

The  Post  objected  to  the  "Napoleon-Caesar-Tweed" 
theory  of  Grant,  the  belief  that  he  was  a  corrupt  man  of 
colossal  ambition,  egotism,  and  determination,  but  it  said 


400  THE  EVENING  POST 

nothing  more  in  his  defense  than  that  he  was  "a  plain 
American  citizen,  with  his  average  defects,  his  average 
ignorance,  his  average  intelligence,  and  his  average  vices 
and  virtues."  It  made  fun  of  his  ignorance  of  political 
economy — he  had  said  that  the  nation  could  never  be 
poor  while  it  had  the  gold  locked  in  the  Rockies.  It 
scored  his  liking  for  money,  gifts,  good  dinners,  flashy 
associates,  fast  horses,  and  "style."  The  Post  spoke 
thus  caustically  of  Grant  because  Bryant  had  no  idea  of 
stultifying  the  newspaper,  even  to  help  beat  Greeley; 
but  it  did  it  the  more  readily  because  it  knew  Greeley  had 
not  a  chance.  The  mass  of  the  party  was  with  Grant, 
and  he  received  a  plurality  of  three  quarters  of  a  million. 
When  Greeley's  insanity  and  death  followed  so  trag- 
ically upon  his  humiliating  defeat,  the  Evening  Post  made 
belated  amends  for  its  campaign  severity.  Its  obituary 
editorial  of  Nov.  30  was  marked  by  a  generosity  which  it 
might  well  have  shown  earlier: 

Without  money,  family,  friends,  or  any  of  the  usual  supports 
by  which  men  are  helped  into  eminence,  Mr.  Greeley  won  his 
place  of  influence  and  distinction  by  the  sheer  force  of  his  intel- 
lectual ability  and  the  determination  of  his  character.  By  good 
natural  abilities,  by  industry,  by  temperance,  by  sympathy  with 
what  is  noblest  and  best  in  human  nature,  and  by  earnest  purpose, 
the  ignorant,  friendless,  unknown  printer's  boy  of  a  few  years 
since  became  the  powerful  and  famous  journalist,  whose  words 
went  forth  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  affecting  the  destinies  of  all 
mankind. 

II 

An  entirely  different  question  was  posed  by  the  election 
of  1876 — the  question  whether  the  long  friendship  of 
Bryant  and  the  former  sub-editors  for  Samuel  J.  Tilden 
should  carry  the  Evening  Post  over  to  the  Democratic 
side.  The  decision  finally  made  is  of  peculiar  interest, 
for  it  shows  how  little  Bryant  was  inclined  to  let  per- 
sonal considerations  sway  him  upon  any  public  question. 

Early  in  the  thirties,  while  Bryant  and  other  editors 
were  wrangling  over  the  Bank,  an  ardent  Democrat  from 


ELECTIONS  OF  '72  AND  '76  401 

New  Lebanon,  N.  Y.,  named  Elam  Tilden,  visited  the 
Evening  Post,  and  Introduced  his  son  Samuel,  a  boy  In 
roundabouts.  Bryant  often  spoke  In  later  years  of  the 
Impression  made  on  him  by  the  youth's  precocity,  hand- 
some features,  and  cultivated  speech.  A  few  years  later 
young  Tilden  studied  at  New  York  University,  and  Im- 
proved his  acquaintance  with  the  poet.  When  In  the  fall 
of  1 84 1  Bryant  made  one  of  his  country  excursions,  he 
chose  New  Lebanon  for  headquarters,  and  visited  the 
Tilden  family.  The  ties  between  Tilden  and  the  Post 
were  much  strengthened  after  1848,  when  BIgelow  be- 
came junior  editor.  We  have  seen  that  they  were  ac- 
quainted as  young  lawyers,  and  BIgelow  was  State  prison 
Inspector  at  the  same  time  that  Tilden  began  his  political 
career  In  the  Assembly.  Tilden  frequently  visited  the 
Post  and  discussed  political  topics.  It  was  there  that  he 
published  an  explanation  of  his  stand  In  the  campaign  of 
i860,  and  It  was  with  the  freedom  of  an  old  friend  that 
he  told  BIgelow  that  he  and  Bryant  shared  the  blood- 
guilt  of  the  conflict. 

After  the  war  his  visits  were  less  frequent.  But  he 
made  the  Evening  Post  his  mouthpiece  when.  In  187 1-2, 
he,  ex-Mayor  Havemeyer,  and  Andrew  H.  Green  pushed 
home  the  fight  against  the  Tweed  Ring.  The  Post  al- 
ways credited  Tilden  with  being  the  chief  agent  in  prov- 
ing the  actual  guilt  of  Tweed's  lieutenants.  During  the 
spring  of  1873  an  acrimonious  controversy  was  carried 
on  between  Tilden  and  the  Times,  turning  In  the  main 
upon  a  new  Charter  proposed  at  Albany,  which  Tilden 
attacked  and  the  Times  defended.  Tilden  used  the  Post 
for  the  publication  of  his  letters,  and  Bryant  editorially 
supported  him. 

As  Governor,  Tilden  Invited  Bryant  in  the  early  weeks 
of  1875  to  pay  him  a  visit  at  the  Executive  Mansion,  and 
the  editor  accepted.  Both  branches  of  the  Legislature 
tendered  Bryant  a  public  reception,  the  first  time  that  the 
State  had  paid  such  an  honor  to  any  man  of  letters.  At 
a  dinner  party  on  Tilden's  birthday,  Bryant,  in  toasting 
the  Governor,  said  that  the  public  would  not  be  displeased 


402  THE  EVENING  POST 

if  his  present  position  proved  a  stepping-stone  to  the 
Presidency.  At  all  times  the  Post,  like  other  New  York 
papers,  expressed  golden  opinions  of  Tilden's  adminis- 
tration, and  in  especial  of  his  attacks  upon  the  "Canal 
Ring,"  a  bi-partisan  organization  which  had  gained  huge 
sums  through  fraudulent  contracts  for  the  repair  of  the 
State  canals. 

It  was  therefore  natural  that  when  in  1876  the  election 
of  a  successor  to  Grant  approached,  Tilden's  friends  had 
a  strong  hope  that  Bryant  and  the  Evening  Post  would 
lend  the  Governor  their  support.  The  newspaper  gave 
no  advance  hint  of  its  attitude.  When  Hayes  was  nom- 
inated by  the  Republicans  on  June  16,  it,  like  all  other 
independent  journals,  was  pleased.  Its  overshadowing 
fear  had  been  that  Blaine,  whom  it  detested  as  dishonest, 
would  be  named,  and  it  saw  in  Hayes  as  good  a  man  as 
its  own  previous  favorite,  Bristow  of  Kentucky.  While 
some  sneered  at  the  nomination  as  negative  and  weak, 
the  Post  predicted  that  it  would  "turn  out  to  be  positive 
and  strong."  On  the  other  hand,  it  thought  the  platform 
poor.  It  called  the  civil  service  plank  platitudinous  and 
empty,  and  the  currency  plank,  which  temporized  with 
regard  to  specie  resumption,  worse  still. 

Nor  did  the  Evening  Post  immediately  commit  itself 
after  the  Democratic  Convention.  Over  Tilden's  nom- 
ination it  rejoiced  even  more  than  over  that  of  Hayes. 
It  recognized  his  sterling  integrity  and  zeal  as  a  reformer 
and  was  delighted  that  he  had  beaten  both  Tammany  and 
the  mediocre  Western  aspirants.  Senator  Thurman  and 
Gov.  Hendricks.  But  it  did  not  openly  pronounce  for 
him,  and  its  comment  upon  the  Democratic  platform 
maintained  a  careful  impartiality.  "In  respect  to  finan- 
cial reform  their  position  is  worse  than  that  of  the  Re- 
publicans; in  respect  to  a  reform  of  the  civil  service  they 
offer  nothing  better;  in  respect  to  revenue  reform  they 
have  done  better."  The  decision  was  left  until  after  the 
4th  of  July. 

All  the  influence  of  Bigelow,  who  sometimes  still  wrote 
editorials  for  the  Post^  was  in  favor  of  Tilden.    He  was 


ELECTIONS  OF  '72  AND  '76  403 

the  candidate's  campaign  manager,  and  would  be  Secre- 
tary of  State  If  Tilden  won.  So  was  all  the  influence  of 
Parke  Godwin,  Bryant's  son-in-law  and  formerly  a  part 
owner.  Bryant's  own  friendship  for  TUden  weighed 
heavily  in  the  balance.  But  the  decision  was  not,  as  the 
public  supposed,  Bryant's  alone.  Some  years  earlier  the 
Evening  Post  had  been  reorganized  as  a  joint  stock  com- 
pany, and  Bryant  held  exactly  half,  not  a  majority,  of 
the  shares.  The  other  half  were  owned  by  Isaac  Hender- 
son, the  able,  smooth-tongued,  rubicund  business  manager, 
who  had  been  a  partner  since  the  early  fifties,  and  whose 
influence  as  Bryant  became  older  gradually  extended  out- 
side the  business  oflice  to  the  editorial  rooms.  His  one 
anxiety  for  the  Evening  Post  was  that  it  should  pay  fat 
dividends,  and  he  was  no  more  scrupulous  as  to  the  means 
than  the  business  managers  of  other  newspapers.  Mr. 
J.  Ranken  Towse  tells  us  how  distinct  by  1876  was  the 
influence  he  exerted  upon  the  editorial  poHcy: 

It  was  not  often  that  legitimate  exception  could  be  taken  to  its 
utterances,  but  as  much  could  not  be  said  of  its  unaccountable 
reticences.  For  some  of  these  there  may  have  been  a  good  and 
sufficient  reason,  at  which  I  cannot  even  guess,  but  there  were 
others  which  could  be  understood  only  too  easily.  The  simple 
fact  is  that  William  CuUen  Bryant,  though  editor-in-chief  and  half 
owner,  was  by  no  means  in  absolute  control  of  the  paper.  Be- 
tween the  counting  room  and  the  editorial  department  there  was 
a  constant,  silent,  irrepressible  conflict,  not  to  say  antagonism — 
for  I  have  always  been  convinced  that  the  limits  of  it  were  defined 
by  some  sort  of  agreement,  written  or  tacit — whenever  the  ques- 
tion at  issue  was  one  of  direct  commercial  profit,  which  often 
acted  as  a  bar  to  the  candid  discussion  of  inconvenient  topics. 

When  on  June  29  the  Post  printed  its  warm  but  non- 
committal praise  of  Tllden's  nomination,  Henderson, 
who  knew  that  commercial  sentiment  in  New  York  was 
in  favor  of  the  Republicans,  came  upstairs  and  was  clos- 
eted with  Bryant  in  a  long  discussion  of  editorial  policy. 
The  next  important  editorial  utterance,  July  5,  was  an 
angry  attack  upon  the  Democratic  platform.  The  Demo- 
cratic Party  was  condemned  for  its  ^'knavish"  Indifference 


404  THE  EVENING  POST 

to  sound  currency,  and  was  represented  as  an  unsafe 
organization  to  be  given  charge  of  Southern  affairs  while 
they  remained  so  unsettled.  On  July  6  the  Post  remarked 
that  the  hard-money  Tilden,  running  in  1876  upon  a  soft- 
money  platform,  presented  an  exact  parallel  to  the  high- 
tariff  Greeley  running  in  1872  upon  a  low-tariff  plat- 
form; that  "the  two  canvasses  are  alike  in  their  teachery, 
their  evasiveness,  their  shameless  surrender  of  principle." 
On  July  10  it  declared  fully  for  Hayes. 

Bigelow  and  Parke  Godwin  have  published  a  number 
of  Bryant's  letters  relating  to  this  stand  by  the  Evening 
Post.  One  is  his  refusal  of  Tilden's  request  that  he  let 
his  name  head  the  ticket  of  Democratic  electors.  Another 
is  his  letter  to  J.  C.  Derby  explaining  that,  while  he  be- 
lieved Tilden  a  truer  statesman  than  Hayes,  he  thought 
the  Republican  principles,  especially  with  regard  to  sound 
money  and  the  merit  system,  so  much  superior  that  it  was 
impossible  to  detach  the  Evening  Post  from  the  party 
that  had  won  the  Civil  War.  He  implied  that  his  con- 
trol of  the  paper  was  complete,  and  said  that  its  utter- 
ances had  suited  him  in  everything  except  some  details; 
while  Henderson  explicitly  stated  to  the  somewhat  in- 
credulous Derby  that  this  was  true.  But  Bigelow's  and 
Godwin's  own  letters  of  the  time  have  not  been  printed, 
and  they  show  a  strong  belief  that  Bryant  did  not  make 
the  Post's  decision.  It  is  sufficient  to  quote  one  by  Bige- 
low, dated  Albany,  July  14: 

The  principal  result  of  my  talk  with  Henderson  was  to  satisfy 
me  that — [Bigelow  simply  made  a  long,  wavy  line].  The  rest 
I  will  tell  you  when  I  see  you. 

In  can  hardly  trust  myself  to  talk  about  the  Post.  I  hope  to 
be  spared  the  necessity  of  writing  about  it.  But  the  Evening  Post 
that  you  and  I  have  known  and  honored,  which  educated  us  and 
through  which  we  have  educated  others  in  political  science,  I  fear 
no  longer  exists.  The  paper  which  bears  its  name  is  no  more  our 
Evening  Post  than  the  present  Commercial  Advertiser  is  the  sheet 
once  edited  under  that  name  by  Col.  Stone.  I  only  wish  Mr. 
Bryant  had  his  name  stricken  out  of  it. 

Allowance  must  be  made  for  Bigelow's  chagrin.     The 


ELECTIONS  OF  '72  AND  '76  405 

probability  is  that  Bryant  at  the  end  of  June  was  waver- 
ing; that  Henderson  advanced  his  arguments  respectfully 
but  firmly;  and  that  Bryant  of  his  own  free  will  placed 
the  Evening  Post  behind  Hayes.  After  all,  his  old  asso- 
ciates in  attacking  Grant,  the  Liberal  Republican  lead- 
ers, flocked  back  to  the  G.  O.  P.  He  had  the  resumption 
of  specie  payments  close  to  his  heart,  and  was  alarmed  by 
the  soft-money  convictions  of  western  Democrats;  he 
feared  the  shock  to  hopes  of  civil  service  reform  if  a 
horde  of  oflice-hungry  Democrats  poured  into  Washing- 
ton; and  the  recent  conduct  of  the  Democratic  House 
gave  him  reason  to  think  they  would  do  little  for  tariff 
reduction.  It  was  perfectly  logical  for  the  journal  to 
stand  with  the  party  which  it  had  helped  found  and  had 
ever  since  supported,  while  it  would  have  been  hard  to 
find  a  logical  justification  for  leaving  it.  Throughout  the 
campaign  it  stood  by  Hayes,  though  with  very  moderate 
zeal,  and  it  rejoiced  when  the  Electoral  Commission  gave 
him  the  Presidency.  Bryant  later  wrote  that  he  had 
never  before  felt  so  little  interest  in  a  contest  for  the 
Presidency.  No  one  ever  knew  for  whom  he  voted  on 
election  day,  for,  saying  with  a  smile  that  the  ballot  was 
a  secret  institution,  he  always  refused  to  tell;  Bigelow 
believed  that  he  voted  for  neither  candidate. 


CHAPTER  EIGHTEEN 

TWO  REBEL  LITERARY  EDITORS 

Amid  the  eulogies  which  followed  Bryant's -death  In 
1878,  a  dissenting  note  was  struck  by  that  short-lived 
Illustrated  newspaper,  the  Daily  Graphic.  After  a  dis- 
paraging estimate  of  his  poetry,  It  remarked  that  he,  as 
one  of  our  most  celebrated  literary  men,  should  have 
made  the  Evening  Post  the  country's  leading  critical  au- 
thority. *'It  utterly  failed  to  become  such  an  authority. 
Indeed,  It  would  be  hard  to  say  what  benefits  the  exist- 
ence of  the  Evening  Post  has  conferred  upon  literature. 
We  say  this  in  all  kindness,  and  with  a  full  knowledge 
that  there  were  difficulties  In  the  way  of  creating  a  lit- 
erary journal.  ..." 

There  was  force  In  this  statement  of  an  opportunity 
missed,  though  the  Graphic  exaggerated  the  Posfs  de- 
ficiencies, and  failed  to  consider  whether  they  might  not 
be  due  to  lack  of  public  appreciation  of  anything  better. 
The  truth  Is  that  till  1881  there  was  no  American  news- 
paper whose  literary  criticism  would  now  be  considered 
of  high  standards.  This  is  said  with  due  respect  to 
George  Ripley,  who  after  years  at  Harvard,  at  Brook 
farm,  and  in  the  ministry  which  made  him  personally  in- 
timate with  most  of  the  New  England  authors,  joined 
the  Tribune  in  1849  ^^^  remained  in  its  harness  until 
his  death.  He  gave  himself  up  to  literary  criticism  with 
an  industry  equaled  In  our  journalistic  history  by  that 
of  W.  P.  Garrison  alone.  He  began  as  a  man  of  wide 
culture;  he  was  so  devoted  to  study  and  research  that 
in  time  there  were  few  subjects  upon  which  he  could  not 
supply  facts  and  ideas  of  his  own;  he  was  conscientious, 
unprejudiced,  and  accustomed  to  refer  to  first  principles. 
Tyndall  wrote  that  he  had  "the  grasp  of  a  philosopher 
and  the  good  taste  of  a  gentleman."     His  reviews  were 

406 


TWO  LITERARY  EDITORS  407 

easily  the  best  In  any  American  journal,  and  he  had  some 
assistance  from  Bayard  Taylor,  John  Hay,  and  other 
able  men.  But  he  was  too  mild,  while  he  had  no  thought 
of  sending  each  new  book  to  a  specialist. 

Through  simple  Inattention,  no  regular  chair  was  estab- 
lished for  a  literary  editor  by  the  Post  till  after  the  Civil 
War.  In  August,  i860,  young  William  Dean  Howells 
applied  for  such  a  place,  bearing  a  letter  from  James  T. 
Fields  of  the  Atlantic,  who  said:  "He  chooses  the  Post 
of  all  papers  In  the  Union,  and  if  you  get  him  for  your 
literary  work,  etc.,  you  will  get  a  lad  who  will  be  worth 
his  weight,  etc.,  etc.,  etc."  BIgelow's  sagacity  for  once 
failed  him,  and  Howells  was  turned  away.  Later  an  ap- 
plication from  Park  Benjamin  was  rejected.  There  was 
little  room  for  reviews  during  the  war,  and  little  Inclina- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  public  to  think  of  pure  literature. 
But  when  Bryant  returned  from  his  last  trip  to  Europe 
and  settled  down  to  translate  Homer  he  finally  saw  the 
need  for  such  an  editor. 

In  April,  1867,  there  reached  New  York  from  the 
South  a  slight,  gaunt  man  of  forty-three,  the  emaciation  of 
whose  face  was  partly  concealed  by  his  heavy  beard,  but 
who  was  as  clearly  in  bad  health  as  in  reduced  circum- 
stances. He  was  received  with  honor  by  the  city's  grow- 
ing colony  of  former  Confederates.  This  was  John  R. 
Thompson,  who  had  edited  the  Southern  Literary  Mes- 
senger for  thirteen  years  previous  to  the  war.  He  was 
employed  by  Albion,  a  weekly  devoted  to  English  inter- 
ests, and  then  by  its  feeble  successor.  Every  Afternoon. 
Meanwhile,  E.  C.  Stedman  had  introduced  him  to  Bryant, 
while  Bryant's  old  friend,  William  Gilmore  SImms,  wrote 
recommending  him  to  notice  and  assistance.  In  May, 
1868,  he  was  appointed  literary  editor  of  the  Evening 
Post,  a  position  which  he  held  five  years. 

Thompson's  training  seemed  admirable  for  the  place. 
He  had  proved  himself  one  of  the  ablest  conductors  of 
the  Southern  Literary  Messenger,  which  Poe  had  edited 
before  him.  He  gave  it  not  only  his  personal  services 
without  return,  but  spent  his  small  patrimony  to  keep  it 


4o8  THE  EVENING  POST 

alive.  Frank  R.  Stockton  and  Donald  G.  Mitchell  among 
Northern  authors  received  their  first  recognition  from 
him,  while  the  small  band  of  Southern  literary  men  re- 
garded the  magazine  as  their  section's  chief  exponent. 
When  In  1859,  at  John  P.  Kennedy's  suggestion,  he  sought 
the  llbrarlanship  of  the  Peabody  Institute  In  Baltimore, 
Longfellow  and  Edward  Everett  were  among  those  who 
wrote  recommending  him.  During  the  war,  while  for  a 
time  Virginia's  Assistant  Secretary  of  State  and  later  edi- 
tor of  the  Richmond  Record,  he  was  a  kind  of  laureate 
of  the  Confederacy,  his  spirited  verses  following  many 
.military  events  of  Importance.  "Ashby,"  "The  Burial 
of  Latane,"  and  "Lee  to  the  Rear"  are  known  by  every 
Southern  schoolboy,  while  "Music  In  Camp"  Is  In  every 
anthology  of  historical  verse.  In  1864  he  escaped  to 
England  on  a  blockade  runner  to  carry  on  publicity  for 
the  South,  and  not  only  worked  on  the  Index,  a  Confed- 
erate organ,  but  contributed  to  Blackwood's,  Punch,  the 
Standard,  and  other  periodicals.  He  was  a  frequent  vis- 
itor at  Carlyle's  home  in  Cheyne  Row,  and  is  mentioned 
In  Carlyle's  "Reminiscences"  ,  Tennyson  entertained  him 
several  times  at  Farrlngford,  and  he  knew  Bulwer,  Kings- 
ley,  and  Thackeray. 

He  soon  became  one  of  the  best-liked  men  on  the  Post 
staff.  He  wrote  the  extensive  review  of  the  first  volume 
of  Bryant's  translation  of  the  Iliad  in  February,  1870, 
and  that  of  the  second  that  summer;  and  Bryant  came  to 
have  him  much  at  his  home.  There  was  no  more  charm- 
ing conversationalist  In  New  York  society.  "He  had 
read  so  variously,  observed  so  minutely,  and  retained 
so  tenaciously  the  results  of  his  reading  and  observation," 
Bryant  wrote  later  In  the  Post,  "that  he  was  never  at  a 
loss  for  a  topic  and  never  failed  to  Invest  what  he  was 
speaking  of  with  a  rare  and  original  interest.  His  fund 
of  anecdote  was  almost  Inexhaustible,  and  his  ability  to 
illustrate  any  subject  by  apt  quotation  no  less  remark- 
able." John  Esten  Cooke  thought  him  an  unexcelled 
story-teller,  and  R.  H.  Stoddard  has  agreed. 

He  was  a  rebel  to  be  loved,  we  are  told  by  Watson  R. 


TWO  LITERARY  EDITORS  409 

Sperry,  later  managing  editor.  "A  lot  of  tall,  straggling 
Virginia  gentlemen,  ex-soldiers,  I  fancy,  all  of  them,  be- 
gan to  visit  the  office.  Mr.  Thompson  had  a  big  man's 
beard,  a  delicate  body,  and  a  sensitive,  feminine  nature. 
He  was  a  bit  punctilious,  but  kindness  itself."  His  care- 
ful attention  to  dress,  verging  on  foppishness,  was  less 
out  of  place  in  Bryant's  office  than  it  would  have  been 
in  Greeley's  or  Dana's.  J.  Ranken  Towse  speaks  of  his 
personal  charm,  a  reflection  of  his  experience  in  the  best 
Richmond  and  London  circles.  "Though  not  a  marvel 
of  erudition  or  critical  genius,  he  was  a  pleasant,  culti- 
vated gentleman,  refined  in  taste  and  manner,  genial, 
humorous,  and  abundantly  capable." 

Unfortunately,  Thompson  added  little  to  the  Pastes 
literary  reputation.  In  large  part  this  was  because  of 
his  wretched  health,  for  he  steadily  wasted  away  with 
consumption,  was  much  out  of  the  office,  and  maintained 
his  energy  only  by  following  his  doctor's  orders  to  take 
large  doses  of  whisky.  Early  in  1872  his  condition  was 
so  bad  that  when  Bryant  set  out  for  Cuba,  the  Bahamas, 
and  Mexico,  he  took  Thompson  along  to  escape  the  rigor 
of  winter.  Thompson,  moreover,  was  an  essayist  and 
poet  rather  than  a  critic.  He  prepared  a  book  upon  his 
European  experiences  which  was  in  the  bindery  of  Derby  ^ 
&  Jackson  when  fire  destroyed  it;  and  his  letters  of  travel 
on  various  vacation  tours,  with  some  editorial  essays, 
were  his  best  work  for  the  paper.  His  most  famous 
poem,  the  translation  of  Nadaud's  '^Carcassone,"  was 
written  in  the  Evening  Post  office — ''the  unfinished  manu- 
script was  kicking  around  on  his  desk  for  several  days," 
says  Sperry — but  published  in  Lippincott^s;  its  popularity 
rather  irritated  him. 

Even  had  his  health  been  sound  and  his  critical  faculties 
the  best,  Thompson  could  not  have  made  the  Post  a  good 
literary  organ  in  the  present-day  sense.  It  did  not  want  / 
critical  or  analytic  reviews.  An  entertaining  summary 
or  paraphrase  would  appeal  far  more  to  the  general 
reader.  Moreover,  there  was  a  feeling  that  American 
literature  was  a  delicate  organism,  which  needed  petting 


4IO  THE  EVENING  POST 

and  might  have  Its  spirit  broken  by  harsh  words.  Mr. 
Towse  justly  says  of  Thompson:  "His  condemnation  was 
apt  to  be  expressed  in  terms  of  modified  praise.  He 
confined  himself  largely  to  what  was  explanatory  or  de- 
scriptive, though  his  articles  were  written  fluently  and 
elegantly,  were  interesting,  and  had  a  news,  if  no  great 
descriptive  value."  Bryant  reviewed  many  of  the  younger 
poets  with  the  same  benignancy  with  which  Howells  used 
to  review  young  novelists  in  the  Easy  Chair.  The  first 
Important  volumes  of  which  Thompson  wrote  notices 
were  the  concluding  volumes  of  Froude's  England,  King- 
lake's  Crimean  War,  and  Motley's  United  Netherlands, 
Raphael  Pumpelly's  travels,  Mark  Twain's  "Innocents 
Abroad,"  and  Miss  Alcott's  "Little  Women."  The  no- 
tices consisted  of  scissors  work  and  tepid  comment. 

During  the  years  just  after  the  war,  Indeed,  the  Post's 
columns  were  singularly  devoid  of  permanent  literary  in- 
terest. The  Cary  sisters.  Miles  O'Reilly,  and  Helen 
Hunt  Jackson  contributed  verse,  and  there  were  various 
occasional  poems,  like  E.  C.  Stedman's  "Crete"  (1867) 
and  Holmes's  Harvard  dinner  poem  of  1866.  Samuel 
Osgood,  for  years  a  prominent  minister  at  the  Unitarian 
Church  of  the  Messiah  (Bryant's  church),  and  a  vol- 
uminous writer  on  historical  and  religious  topics,  printed 
many  essays.  Charles  Lanman  contributed  his  interesting 
recollections  of  two  famous  Washington  editors.  Gales 
and  Seaton,  of  the  National  Intelligencer,  and  there  were 
others  of  the  same  small  caliber. 

The  most  noteworthy  contributions  were  those,  almost 
the  last  of  his  long  career,  from  Bryant's  own  pen.  The 
aged  poet,  after  the  death  of  his  wife  and  the  conclusion 
of  his  translations  from  Homer,  wrote  fewer  editorials, 
and  many  of  these  at  the  request  of  friends,  in  support  of 
a  worthy  charity  or  civic  movement.  But  he  did  like  to 
write  short  essays  for  the  editorial  page,  often  printed 
in  minion,  on  topics  ranging  from  macaronic  verse  to  his- 
tory and  politics.  Despite  what  Hazlitt  says  of  the  prose 
style  of  poets,  that  of  Bryant  was  always  of  unmistakable 
distinction.    When  he  took  such  a  subject  as  the  beauties 


TWO  LITERARY  EDITORS  411 

of  winter  as  seen  at  Roslyn  (January,  1873),  the  result 
was  worthy  of  permanent  preservation: 

A  light  but  continuous  rain  fell  on  Saturday  and  froze  on 
everything  it  touched,  and  wetted  the  snow  only  enough  to  change 
it  on  the  trees  from  white  to  the  clearest  and  most  brilliant  crys- 
tal. So  overloaded  were  they  with  their  icy  diamonds  that  tall 
cedars  bent  themselves  like  nodding  plumes,  and  pines  and  hem- 
locks bowed  down  like  tents  of  cloth  of  silver  over  the  snowy 
carpet  underneath.  The  russet  leaves  of  the  beeches  shone  out 
like  frozen  leaves  of  gold,  and  trunks  and  boughs  and  twigs  of 
deciduous  trees  were  as  if  they  had  been  enameled  with  melted 
glass  from  their  very  roots  to  the  most  delicate  extremities.  On 
Sunday  morning  the  sun  shone  out  upon  such  a  landscape  as  this, 
to  light  up,  but  not  to  melt,  the  silvery  sheen  and  the  diamond 
sparkle  which  winter  had  sprinkled  over  all  outdoors.  One  who 
breathed  the  exhilaration  of  the  air  of  that  day,  and  looked  upon 
its  wonderful  beauty,  could  hardly  find  it  in  the  heart  to  regret 
the  destruction  that  it  caused.  But  all  day  long  the  overloaded 
trees  yielded  to  the  weight  of  ice,  and  one  who  listened  could  hear 
in  every  direction,  like  the  discharge  of  infantry,  the  crashing  of 
the  falling  branches.  In  some  cases  whole  trees  were  stripped, 
leaving  only  the  shattered  trunk,  a  torn  and  broken  shaft  with 
all  its  glory  strewn  upon  the  snow. 

Early  in  1873  it  became  evident  that  Thompson's  con- 
dition was  desperate.  The  Post  in  February,  upon  the 
advice  of  his  physician,  sent  him  to  Colorado,  a  step 
which  proved  a  mistake.  He  became  rapidly  worse, 
started  back  on  April  17,  reached  the  city  in  a  dying 
state,  and  passed  away  at  Isaac  Henderson's  home  on 
April  30.  His  funeral  in  New  York  was  attended  by 
Bryant,  Stedman,  Richard  Watson  Gilder,  Gen.  Pryor, 
Whitelaw  Reid,  R.  H.  Stoddard  (whom  he  made  his 
literary  executor,  but  who  did  nothing  with  his  manu- 
scripts) and  others  of  prominence;  while  in  Richmond  on 
the  same  day  a  meeting  was  held  in  his  honor  by  the 
pulpit,  bar,  and  press  in  the  House  of  Delegates.  His 
last  incomplete  review  was  of  the  poems  of  a  Southerner, 
Henry  Timrod.  Not  until  1920  were  his  own  poems 
collected  in  a  volume  sponsored  by  his  alma  mater,  the 
University  of  Virginia. 


412  THE  EVENING  POST 

For  some  time  his  place  was  left  unsupplied  while 
Bryant  searched  for  a  successor;  for  the  editor  had  come 
to  the  belated  conclusion  that  the  literary  editorship 
should  be  the  most  important  place  of  its  kind  in  America. 
While  the  search  was  going  on,  in  1875,  the  year  the 
Post  moved  into  the  fine  Bryant  Building  which  Hender- 
son built  for  it  at  a  cost  of  $750,000,  George  Gary 
Eggleston  joined  the  staff. 

Eggleston  was  a  successful  young  author  of  thirty-five, 
though  by  no  means  so  famous  as  his  elder  brother  Ed- 
ward Eggleston,  whose  "Hoosier  Schoolmaster,"  appear- 
ing in  book  form  in  1872,  had  sold  20,000  copies  within 
a  year.  He  had  crowded  into  these  thirty-five  years  as 
much  experience  as  many  active  men  get  in  a  lifetime. 
Born  in  Indiana,  educated  in  Virginia,  a  soldier  through- 
out the  war  in  the  Confederate  army,  later  a  practicing 
lawyer  in  Illinois  and  Mississippi,  he  had  come, to  Brook- 
lyn and  in  1870  became  an  editorial  writer  on  Theodore 
Tilton's  Brooklyn  Union.  Soon  afterward  he  and  Ed- 
ward Eggleston  took  joint  charge  of  Hearth  and  Home, 
and  began  putting  life  into  that  moribund  publication. 
It  was  in  this  effort  that  Edward  Eggleston  seized  upon 
his  brother's  experiences  as  a  schoolmaster  at  RIker's 
Ridge,  Indiana,  as  a  basis  for  his  famous  novel.  The 
two  were  on  the  high  road  to  success  when  the  magazine 
was  purchased,  and  both  took  to  free  lancing.  George 
Gary  Eggleston  settled  down  to  writing  boys'  books  and 
magazine  articles  in  an  orchard-framed  farmhouse  in 
New  Jersey.  He  had  already  published,  first  In  the 
Atlantic  and  then  in  book  form,  one  of  the  most  graphic 
of  Southern  war  volumes,  "A  Rebel's  Recollections," 
which  had  been  warmly  received. 

Unfortunately,  while  at  work  in  his  cottage  he  was 
swindled  out  of  all  his  savings  by  a  scoundrelly  publisher, 
and  hurried  to  New  York  to  seek  editorial  work  again. 
He  felt  honored  to  be  associated  with  Bryant;  he  liked 
the  uncompromising  dignity  of  the  Evening  Post.  It 
was,  he  used  to  say,  the  completest  realization  of  the 
ideal  of  the  old  Pall  Mall  Gazette — a  newspaper  con- 


TWO  LITERARY  EDITORS  413 

ducted  by  gentlemen,  for  gentlemen.  His  work  consisted 
of  assisting  Bryant,  Sidney  Howard  Gay,  Parke  Godwin, 
and  Watson  R.  Sperry  in  writing  editorials,  and  was  con- 
genial. Incidentally,  he  helped  Bryant  in  his  search  for 
a  literary  editor.  He  wrote  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  set- 
ting forth  the  dignity  of  the  position,  the  attractive  sal- 
ary, and  the  pleasant  nature  of  the  work;  all  of  which 
Aldrich  acknowledged,  replying:  "But,  my  dear  Eggles- 
ton,  what  can  the  paper  offer  to  compensate  one  for  hav- 
ing to  live  in  New  York?" 

While  affairs  were  in  this  posture,  Bryant  one  day 
entered  the  Post  library  and  began  clambering  about  on 
a  step-ladder,  searching  the  shelves.  Eggleston,  from  his 
little  den  opening  off  the  larger  room,  saw  him  hunting, 
and  suggested  that  he  might  be  able  to  help  find  the  in- 
formation wanted.  "I  think  not,"  answered  Bryant  in 
his  curt,  cold  way,  and  then  added,  taking  down  still 
another  volume:  "I'm  looking  for  a  line  that  I  ought 
to  know  where  to  find,  but  do  not."  Asking  Bryant  for 
the  substance  of  the  quotation,  Eggleston  was  fortunately 
able  to  recognize  it  as  a  half-forgotten  passage  in  Cow- 
ley. He  seized  the  office  copy  of  Cowley,  turned  to  the 
page,  and  laid  it  open  in  Bryant's  hand.  The  poet  seemed 
surprised,  and  lost  all  interest  in  the  quotation..  "How," 
he  demanded,  "do  you  happen  to  know  anything  about 
Cowley?" 

Eggleston  explained  that  as  a  youth  upon  a  Virginia 
plantation,  seized  by  an  overmastering  thirst  for  litera- 
ture, he  had  read  the  books  in  the  libraries  of  all  the 
old  mansions  in  the  county.  Bryant  settled  himself  in- 
terestedly in  a  chair  of  Eggleston's  room.  The  young 
man's  half-written  editorial  for  the  morrow  lay  unfinished 
on  the  desk,  but  Bryant  never  heeded  it.  For  two  hours 
he  questioned  Eggleston  as  a  candidate  for  the  Ph.D. 
degree  in  English  is  now  questioned  at  his  oral  examina- 
tion; inquiring  as  to  his  preferences,  dislikes,  and  knowl- 
edge of  books  and  authors,  and  making  him  defend  his 
opinions.     Then  he  abruptly  said  "Good  afternoon." 

Just  before  noon  the  next  day  the  managing  editor 


414  THE  EVENING  POST 

entered  Eggleston's  room  with  an  expression  of  mingled 
Irritation  and  amusement.  Mr.  Bryant  had  just  been  in, 
he  reported.  "He  walked  into  my  office  and  said  to  me, 
'Mr.  Sperry,  I  have  appointed  Mr.  Eggleston  literary 
editor.  Good  morning,  Mr.  Sperry,'  and  walked  out 
again." 

Eggleston's   literary  editorship,   which   endured  until 
the  Post  changed  hands  in  1881,  was  more  energetic  and 
fruitful  than  that  of  the  half-invalid  Thompson,  partly 
because  he  had  more  money  to  spend.     He  was  an  am- 
bitious, vigorous  young  man,  who  knew  most  of  the  chief 
literary  figures  of  the  time — Howells,  Mark  Twain,  Bret 
Harte,  Stockton,  and  others  met  when  he  edited  Hearth 
and  Home.    In  this  Indian  summer  of  the  old  Post,  before 
Carl  Schurz  and  E.  L.  Godkin  took  it  over,  there  was 
another  outburst  of  poetry  in  its  pages.     It  published 
/     Bryant's  "Christmas  In  1875"  and  his  "Centennial  Hymn, 
\y^       1876";  Whittler's  poem  to  the  memory  of  Halleck  a 
year  later;  and  E.  C.  Stedman's  "Hawthorne."     Charles 
Follen  Adams,  author  of  the  "Leedle  Yawcob  Strauss" 
poems,  contributed  repeatedly.     It  Is  interesting  to  find 
verse  written  by  A.  A.  Adee  while  he  was  secretary  of 
legation  In  Madrid;  by  William  Roscoe  Thayer;  by  Ed- 
gar Fawcett,  the  satirical  novelist;  by  the  late  F.  W. 
Gunsaulus,  Chicago's  most  famous  preacher;  by  Edward 
Eggleston  and  Agnes  Reppller.     There  were  also  Inter- 
esting prose   contributions.      E.   P.    Roe  wrote  upon — 
gardening!     Benton  J.  Lossing  sent  some  historical  ar- 
ticles in  his  last  years;  and  W.  O.  Stoddard,  who  had 
been    Lincoln's    secretary    during    the    Civil    War,    con- 
\       tributed  both  prose  and  verse.     Bret  Harte  for  a  time 
'     had  a  connection  with  the  Post,  which  enabled  him  to 
appear  regularly  for  his  pay,  though  his  writing  was  most 
irregular;  his  work  is  not  identifiable. 

The  literary  correspondence  of  the  journal  was  greatly 

strengthened.     Regular  letters  were  sent  from  Boston  by 

George  Parsons  Lathrop,  Hawthorne's  son-in-law,  who 

during  part  of  this  period  was  assistant-editor  of  the 

v^     Atlantic,   and  well  known   for  his  books.     His  report 


TWO  LITERARY  EDITORS  415 

(Feb.  27,  1878)  of  Emerson's  long-awaited  delivery  of 
his  lecture  on  "The  Fortune  of  the  Republic" — the  sun- 
light streaming  through  a  window  of  Old  South  upon 
the  speaker's  face,  his  manuscript  placed  on  the  flag 
draping  the  pulpit,  a  distinguished  audience  hanging  on 
his  words — was  a  fine  bit  of  writing.  Elie  Reclus,  the 
eminent  French  geographer,  wrote  upon  French  litera- 
ture, as  did  Edward  King,  while  there  were  Italian  and 
London  correspondents.  From  various  American  hands 
came  gossip  about  rising  literary  men  of  the  day,  like 
the  following  vignette  of  a  young  lecturer  named  John 
Fiske : 

His  vast  learning  is  appalling  to  the  ordinary  man.  .  .  .  His 
mind  is  so  clear  that  it  is  said  he  never  copies  his  manuscript. 
He  writes  slowly — the  right  thought  following  its  predecessor  with 
unerring  precision,  the  fit  word  dropping  into  its  place ;  and  with 
this  enviable  faculty  of  composition,  of  understanding  thoroughly, 
and  putting  on  paper  just  as  he  has  in  mind  what  he  sees  so 
clearly,  he  works  right  on,  far  into  the  night,  scarcely  feeling 
the  need  which  most  writers  have  of  mental  rest.  He  is  so  delib- 
erate and  to  be  relied  on  that  once  seeing  the  man,  and  knowing 
his  diligence  and  habits  of  investigation  and  method  of  writing, 
you  cannot  entertain  a  doubt  that  he  will  accomplish  whatever 
he  sets  himself  to  do.  .  .  . 

He  is  of  a  very  simple  and  sincere  nature ;  and  of  Saxon  com- 
plexion and  hair.  .  .  .  He  has  a  rosy  face,  auburn  beard  and 
hair — the  latter  in  short,  crisp  curls — and  brown  eyes  as  round 
as  marbles,  which,  seen  through  the  glasses  he  always  wears,  seem 
to  have  just  looked  up  from  some  absorbing  study  and  to  be 
scarcely  yet  ready  to  take  in  the  common  scenes  of  life.  His  is 
not  a  changeful  countenance,  but  of  the  same  calm,  self-reliant 
expression  on  all  occasions,  as  if  he  took  the  world  philosophically 
and  was  always  in  good  humor  with  it.  He  is  solid,  inclined  to 
the  sluggish  in  build  and  motion,  and  is  slow  of  utterance,  speak- 
ing in  measured  phrases  with  his  teeth  half  shut. 

But  the  standard  of  literary  criticism  was  very  little 
raised  by  Eggleston.  Some  light  is  thrown  upon  his  aims 
by  his  rejoinder  to  a  fellow  Virginian,  E.  S.  Nadal,  who 
in  the  Atlantic  in  1877  accused  newspaper  critics  of  yield- 
ing to  pressure  from  the  advertisers,  and  of  refusing  to 


41 6  THE  EVENING  POST 

treat  harshly  writers  they  personally  knew.  Eggleston 
indignantly  denied  both  allegations,  remarking  that  he 
had  reviewed  "several  thousands  of  good  and  bad  books" 
without  thought  of  advertising  or  personal  friendship. 
He  added  that  Nadal  had  mistaken  the  function  of  the 
newspaper  literary  critic.  It  could  not  be  so  elevated, 
analytic,  and  rigid  as  magazine  reviewing.  The  news- 
paper writer's  chief  business  was  not  to  point  out  faults, 
but  "to  tell  newspaper  readers  what  books  are  published, 
and  what  sort  of  book  each  of  them  is,  so  that  the  reader 
may  decide  for  himself  what  books  to  buy.  His  work  is 
not  so  much  criticism  as  description.  It  is  in  the  nature 
of  news  and  comment  upon  news,  and  the  newspaper 
reviewer  rightly  omits  much  in  the  way  of  adverse 
criticism."  Eggleston's  successor  proved  how  utterly 
fallacious  was  this  statement. 

In  accordance  with  it,  we  find  the  great  majority  of 
volumes — travels  like  Burnaby's  "Ride  to  Khiva," 
biographies  like  Mrs.  Charles  Kingsley's  "Letters  and 
Memorials"  of  her  husband,  histories  like  Symonds's 
"Renaissance  in  Italy" — merely  scissored  and  summar- 
ized. Eggleston  plumed  himself  upon  being  the  first  to 
give  a  thorough  account,  thought  quite  uncritical,  of  the 
most  important  books.  Thus  Elie  Reclus  in  1877  sent  the 
Post  a  scoop  upon  Hugo's  new  "History  of  a  Crime"; 
and  a  few  months  later  it  was  delighted  to  give,  in  a 
column  and  a  half,  the  first  resume  of  Schliemann's  story 
of  his  discoveries  at  Mycenae.  Eggleston  was  alert  to 
obtain  advance  sheets  of  new  books,  and  the  morning 
newspapers  complained  that  the  publishers  made  him  a 
favorite.  When  Tennyson's  "Harold"  was  issued  late 
in  1876,  there  was  no  previous  announcement,  and  a  copy 
was  sent  all  American  and  British  literary  editors  precisely 
at  noon.  The  Evening  Post  reviews  for  that  day  were 
already  in  the  forms,  and  only  an  hour  remained  before 
the  first  edition  went  to  press.  But  Eggleston  resolved 
to  anticipate  the  morning  papers,  enlisted  Foreman  Dith- 
mar  of  the  composing  room,  hurriedly  prepared  two  col- 
umns of  quotation  and  comment,  and  had  them  in  type 


TWO  LITERARY  EDITORS  417 

ready  for  the  front  page  within  his  time-limit.  This  ex- 
ploit, in  which  it  is  hard  to  share  his  pride,  reminds  us 
of  the  story  of  Hugo's  "Legend  of  the  Ages"  reaching 
the  Tribune  office  just  before  Bayard  Taylor  left  for  the 
night,  and  of  how  Taylor  within  fifteen  hours  finished  an 
"exhaustive"  review,  Including  translations  of  five  poems. 

Nevertheless,  from  time  to  time  a  genuinely  critical  bit 
of  writing  emerged  in  the  Post.  The  reviews  of 
Howells's  "A  Foregone  Conclusion"  In  1875  and  of 
Henry  James's  "The  American"  In  1877,  both  apprecia- 
tive, would  do  credit  to  any  literary  journal  to-day.  Parke 
Godwin  wrote  solid  historical  criticism.  The  paper  was 
sufficiently  discriminating  to  prefer  the  best  of  Constance 
Fenimore  Woolson  to  the  second-best  of  Bret  Harte.  Its 
worst  misstep,  shared  by  almost  every  other  American 
journal,  was  Its  low  estimate  of  "Tom  Sawyer"  In  1877. 
It  thought  the  first  half  passable — "fairly  entitled  to  rank 
with  Mr.  Aldrich's  'Story  of  a  Bad  Boy'  " — but  the  sec- 
ond half  poor,  and  It  issued  the  grave  warning:  "Cer- 
tainly It  will  be  in  the  last  degree  unsafe  to  put  the  book 
Into  the  hands  of  Imitative  youth." 

The  subject  of  International  copyright  had  been  re- 
opened In  1867  by  an  article  In  the  Atlantic,  and  the  re- 
publication of  Henry  C.  Carey's  hostile  essays;  but  a 
bill  failed  In  Congress  In  1868  and  another  In  1871. 
Bryant  saw  that  the  Evening  Post  kept  up  Its  campaign 
for  a  reform.  Some  publishers,  led  by  Putnam's  and  J.  R. 
Osgood  &  Co.,  were  for  a  liberal  law,  but  others,  like 
Harper  &  Brothers,  stood  opposed;  while  the  type- 
founders, paper-makers,  and  binders  throughout  the 
Union  were  hostile.  Carey's  school  held  that  Inter- 
national copyright  would  produce  a  centralized  monopoly 
of  bookmaking,  and  included  many  booksellers  of  the 
Middle  and  Western  States  who  complained  that  the 
bulk  of  English  reprints  were  already  monopolized  by 
four  or  five  Eastern  firms.  Carey  also  thought  that  the 
best  way  of  giving  an  author  his  due  would  be  simply  to 
compel  payment  of  a  royalty  to  him.  But  the  Post  in 
1877  took  the  view  that  the  chief  obstacle  to  international 


41 8  THE  EVENING  POST 

copyright  lay  in  the  conviction  of  many  manufacturers 
and  farmers  of  the  West  that  the  patent  system  was  un- 
economic and  Injurious,  and  their  Inchnation  to  regard 
copyright  as  a  kind  of  patent. 

From  Eggleston  we  learn  nearly  as  much  of  Bryant  in 
his  editorial  capacity  as  from  BIgelow  and  Parke  Godwin. 
Bryant  regarded  anonymous  criticism,  he  told  Eggleston, 
*'as  a  thing  quite  as  despicable,  unmanly,  and  cowardly 
as  an  anonymous  letter."  Eggleston's  own  notices  were 
unsigned,  but  Bryant  had  given  prominence  to  the  fact 
that  he  was  literary  editor,  sending  every  publisher  an 
announcement,  and  it  was  the  rule  that  contributed 
criticism  should  bear  at  least  an  initial.  Once  when 
Eggleston  was  about  to  publish  an  anonymous  review  by 
R.  H.  Stoddard,  Bryant's  Indignant  objections  were  with 
difficulty  silenced.  According  to  the  literary  editor, 
Bryant's  printed  Index  expurgatorlus  by  no  means  in- 
cluded all  the  words  to  which  he  objected;  he  tried  to  rule 
out  "numerous"  for  "many,""  "people"  for  "persons," 
"monthly"  for  "monthly  magazine,"  and  so  on.  He  was 
accustomed  to  refer  to  Johnson's  dictionary  as  an  author- 
ity instead  of  later  works.  Eggleston  recalls  the  vigor  of 
Bryant's  literary  prejudices,  one  of  them  apparently 
evinced  by  his  refusal  to  have  the  least  share  in  the  un- 
veiling of  the  Poe  monument  in  Baltimore. 

Yet  he  lays  emphasis  upon  Bryant'j^  unwillingness  to 
deal  severely  with  fellow  poets.  The  old  editor  said  he 
had  always  found  it  possible  to  say  something  good  about 
the  writings  of  the  poorest — to  praise  some  line,  some 
epithet,  at  least.  Once  Eggleston  in  despair  showed  him 
a  volume  of  which  it  was  Impossible  to  commend  a  single 
word.  Bryant  admitted  that  It  was  idiotic;  he  admitted 
that  even  the  cover  was  an  affront  to  taste;  but,  he  said, 
looking  at  it  with  an  expression  of  total  disgust,  "You 
can  commend  the  publishers  for  putting  it  on  well."  This 
was  one  expression  of  Bryant's  innate  gentleness.  He 
was  seriously  distressed  when  some  scribbler  of  verse  on 
one  occasion  caught  up  a  single  commendatory  phrase 
in  Eggleston's  unfavorable  review,  and  asked  Bryant  to 


TWO  LITERARY  EDITORS  419 

allow  him  to  use  that  phrase  as  an  advertisement,  with 
Bryant's  own  name  attached.  Eggleston  answered  the 
appeal,  and  did  it  forcibly.  The  poet  would  change  his 
"day"  at  the  office,  or  would  work  in  the  composing  room, 
to  avoid  bores,  but  he  never  would  be  impolite  to  them. 
Once,  indeed,  a  literary  hack  pestered  him  all  morning 
in  an  effort  to  obtain  the  material  for  articles  to  publish 
upon  Bryant  when  he  died.  Bryant  came  in  obviously 
disturbed,  and  said  to  Eggleston  in  his  mild  way:  "I  tried 
to  be  patient,  but  I  fear  I  was  rude  to  him  at  the  last. 
There  seemed  to  be  no  other  way  of  getting  rid  of  him." 


CHAPTER  NINETEEN 

WARFARE  WITHIN  THE  OFFICE  :  PARKE  GODWIN'S 
EDITORSHIP 

Six  weeks  before  Bryant's  death  preparations  were 
made,  as  with  a  prevision  of  that  event,  for  the  uninter- 
rupted control  of  the  newspaper  by  his  family.  A  re- 
organization was  forced,  under  circumstances  later  to  be 
recounted,  upon  the  business  manager,  Isaac  Henderson. 
The  poet  assigned  the  presidency  of  the  Evening  Post 
Company  to  Judge  John  J.  Monell,  but  kept  the  editor- 
ship ;  Henderson  resigned  as  publisher  and  was  succeeded 
by  his  son,  Isaac,  Jr. ;  and  Parke  Godwin  became  a  trus- 
tee, resuming  his  connection  a^  a  writer  on  artistic,  scien- 
tific, and  literary  topics.  In  June,  1878,  immediately 
after  the  funeral  of  Bryant,  Godwin,  his  son-in-law,  took 
his  place,  and  was  formally  named  editor  in  December. 
His  editorship,  which  endured  but  three  years,  affords  an 
opportunity  to  pause  for  a  survey  of  the  men  who  made 
the  Evening  Post  of  the  seventies,  and  of  the  figure  be- 
lieved by  many  to  be  trying  to  unmake  it. 

The  newspaper  establishment  of  which  Godwin  became 
head  was  one  which,  small  and  antiquated  though  it  would 
seem  now,  had  made  extraordinary  strides  since  the  Civil 
War.  During  the  conflict  it  had  been  housed  in  a  dingy, 
rickety  firetrap  on  the  northwest  corner  of  Liberty  and 
Nassau  Streets,  where  it  had  its  publication  office  on  the 
first  floor,  its  five  small  editorial  rooms  together  with  the 
composing  room  on  the  third  floor,  and  its  presses  In  the 
basement.  But  in  1874-5  Henderson  had  erected  a  new 
and  imposing  building  of  ten  stories  on  the  corner  of 
Fulton  and  Broadway,  which  the  Post  occupied  until 
1907.  Here  the  composing  rooms,  unusually  spacious 
and  well-lighted,  were  on  the  top  floor,  the  editorial 
rooms  next  below,  and  the  oflices  on  the  ground  floor. 

420 


GODWIN'S  EDITORSHIP  421 

It  was  necessary  then  to  be  near  the  postoffice  to  en- 
sure the  early  delivery  of  malls,  and  there  being  no 
"tickers,"  evening  papers  had  also  to  be  near  Wall 
Street.  Stock  quotations  were  long  printed  from  the 
official  sheet  of  the  Stock  Exchange.  A  messenger  boy 
was  kept  waiting  for  the  first  copy  of  this  publication, 
and  it  was  hurried  to  the  newspaper  office,  there  cut  into 
small  "takes,"  and  put  into  type  with  all  possible  speed. 
In  the  seventies  and  early  eighties  the  Post  was  printed 
from  a  huge  eight-cylinder  press,  direct  from  type  which 
was  locked  upon  the  curved  cylinders,  while  men  standing 
in  tiers  upon  each  side  fed  in  the  paper.  The  last  min- 
utes before  the  press  hour  in  the  composing  room,  as  the 
managing  editor  stood  over  the  forms  and  decided  what 
news  should  be  killed,  what  used,  and  what  held  over, 
were  highly  exciting. 

As  for  the  staff,  though  still  small,  it  had  been  steadily 
enlarged  in  the  sixties  and  seventies.  The  first  managing 
editor  was  Charles  Nordhoff,  who  came  in  i860,  when 
the  title  was  still  an  innovation,  having  recently  been  bor- 
rowed from  the  London  Times  by  the  Tribune  to  apply 
to  Dana.  For  a  generation  it  signified  not  a  mere  man- 
ager of  the  news  columns,  as  it  did  later,  but  a  man  who 
in  the  absence  of  the  editor  performed  all  his  functions. 
When  Bryant  was  not  in  the  office,  and  Godwin  did  not 
supply  his  place,  Nordhoff  was  expected  to  take  charge 
of  the  editorial  page.  The  first  literary  editor,  as  we 
have  seen,  John  R.  Thompson,  was  employed  in  1868; 
for  a  time  he  was  expected  also  to  review  some  plays,  but 
within  a  few  years  the  Evening  Post  had  a  special  musical 
and  dramatic  editor  in  the  person  of  William  F.  Williams, 
and  by  the  middle  seventies  Williams  was  practically  con- 
fining himself  to  music  while  J.  Ranken  Towse  took  over, 
to  its  vast  improvement,  the  dramatic  criticism.  Thus 
there  were  three  valuable  employees  doing  work  which 
had  previously  been  ill-done  or  done  not  at  all.  As  for 
the  news  force,  when  in  1871  William  Alexander  Linn 
accepted  the  position  of  city  editor,  he  found  it  to  con- 
sist, besides  himself,  of  six  men.     These  were  the  man- 


422  THE  EVENING  POST 

aging  editor,  at  this  date  Charlton  Lewis;  his  assistant, 
Bronson  Howard;  the  telegraph  editor,  financial  editor, 
one  salaried  reporter,  and  one  reporter  "on  space." 

It  would  have  been  impossible  to  cover  the  news  with 
this  force  had  there  not  been  a  city  news  association 
which  lent  valuable  assistance.  Even  then,  in  emergencies 
Linn  had  sometimes  to  call  upon  the  bright  young  men 
of  the  composing  room  to  accept  assignments,  and  de- 
veloped some  good  journalists  in  this  way.  The  foreman 
of  the  composing  room,  Dithmar,  was  a  German  of  rare 
culture,  who  with  little  early  schooling  had  mastered  hvc 
languages,  and  whom  Bryant  sometimes  delighted  In  pit- 
ting against  pretentious  men  of  small  attainments.  In- 
deed, Bryant  often  discussed  poetry,  German  philosophy, 
and  journalistic  problems  with  him  In  the  most  intimate 
fashion.  He  maintained  an  almost  tyrannical  discipline 
in  his  department,  sometimes  quarreled  violently  with  the 
managing  editor  when  the  latter  wanted  copy  set  which 
would  necessitate  the  killing  of  matter  already  In  type, 
and  even  claimed  the  right  to  protest  to  the  editors 
against  their  editorial  views  whenever  the  latter  dis- 
pleased him.  Later  he  was  appointed  American  consul  at 
Breslau,  Germany,  and  filled  the  position  with  credit. 
One  of  the  compositors  whom  he  recommended  to  Linn 
speedily  made  his  mark  as  a  political  reporter,  and  was 
for  more  than  twenty  years  the  Washington  correspond- 
ent of  the  Times. 

The  managing  editors  who  succeeded  Nordhoff  after 
his  resignation  in  1871  were  all  men  of  distinction.  Charl- 
ton Lewis,  the  first,  was  characterized  by  Harper's 
Weekly  when  he  died  as  "a  college  graduate  who  knew 
Latin."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  his  versatility,  his  ablhty 
to  win  distinction  in  many  different  fields,  was  remark- 
able. He  became  well  known  in  classical  circles  by  his 
prodigious  labors  in  producing  the  Latin  Dictionary  pub- 
lished under  his  name,  a  revision  and  expansion  of 
Freund's.  He  published  translations  from  the  German, 
and  at  the  time  of  his  death  he  was  engaged  in  writing 
a  commentary  upon  Dante.     It  is  said  that  a  professor 


GODWIN^S  EDITORSHIP  423 

of  astronomy,  chatting  with  him  for  an  hour  upon  the 
science,  expressed  astonishment  later  upon  being  told  that 
Lewis  was  not  an  astronomer  by  profession;  the  mistake 
was  natural,  for  Lewis — who  had  taught  both  the  classics 
and  mathematics  at  Union  College — was  really  proficient 
in  mathematical  astronomy.  His  chief  practical  success 
was  in  the  insurance  field,  where  he  became  one  of  the 
greatest  authorities  upon  both  the  legal  and  mathematical 
aspects  of  insurance;  while  he  is  now  remembered  prin- 
cipally for  his  almost  life-long  attention  to  the  problems 
of  charities  and  corrections.  When  managing  editor  of 
the  Post  in  the  early  seventies,  he  induced  E.  C.  Wines 
to  write  a  series  of  articles  upon  prison  reform  in  the 
various  States.  Later  he  became  interested  in  the  move- 
ment for  probation  and  parole,  and  for  years  was  presi- 
dent of  both  the  National  Prison  Association  and  Prison 
Association  of  New  York.  He  made  an  able  managing 
editor,  though  he  was  not  wholly  liked  or  trusted  by  some 
members  of  the  staff.     Mr.  Towse  writes : 

He  did  not,  as  I  remember,  interfere  much,  if  at  ail,  with  the 
general  organization,  confining  himself  mainly  to  the  supervision 
of  the  editorial  page,  for  which  he  wrote  with  his  usual  fluency, 
cogency,  and  eloquence.  He  produced  copy  with  extraordinary 
rapidity  and  neatness,  seldom  making  corrections  of  any  kind. 
The  natural  alertness  of  his  intellect  was  reinforced  by  an  im- 
mense amount  of  varied  and  precise  knowledge,  and  he  impressed 
every  one  with  a  sense  of  his  solid  and  brilliant  competency. 

Lewis  was  followed  by  Arthur  G.  Sedgwick,  the 
brother-in-law  of  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  a  brilliant  young 
writer  whose  promise  had  been  early  discerned  by  E.  L. 
Godkin,  and  who  had  now  been  working  for  some  years 
with  Godkin  in  the  office  of  the  Nation.  That  fact  alone 
would  be  a  sufficient  evidence  of  his  ability  and  character. 
As  W.  C.  Brownell  wrote  years  later,  Sedgwick's  style 
was  "the  acme  of  well-bred  simplicity,  argumentative 
cogency,  and  as  clear  as  a  bell,  because  he  simply  never 
experienced  mental  confusion."  The  editorial  page  could 
not  have  been  in  better  hands  than  his,  but  his  connection 


424  THE  EVENING  POST 

with  the  Post  was — at  this  time — brief.  The  fourth 
managing  editor  was  Sidney  Howard  Gay,  who  wrote 
an  excellent  short  life  of  Madison  for  the  American 
Statesmen  Series,  and  whose  name  Is  linked  with  Bryant's 
by  their  nominal  co-authorship  of  a  four-volume  history 
of  the  United  States.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Bryant  sup- 
plied only  the  Introduction  and  a  little  early  advice.  Gay 
deserving  the  whole  credit  for  the  work.  It  Is  badly 
proportioned,  but  In  large  part  based  upon  original  re- 
search, and  readable  In  style.  Gay  was  not  merely  an 
Industrious  historian,  but  a  capable  journalist,  who  had 
been  trained  on  the  Tribune  In  association  with  Greeley, 
Ripley,  and  Bayard  Taylor. 

The  most  notable  of  the  other  employees  of  the  Eve- 
ning Post  In  the  seventies  was  Newton  F.  Whiting,  the 
financial  editor,  who  was  followed  and  esteemed  by  the 
financial  community  as  few  journalists  have  ever  been. 
It  was  far  more  difficult  then  than  now  to  obtain  a  finan- 
cial editor  who  could  be  trusted  to  abstain  rigidly  from 
dabbling  In  Wall  Street  and  to  hold  the  scales  even 
between  rival  commercial  Interests.  John  BIgelow  relates 
that  in  the  fifties  he  once  spoke  of  this  difficulty  at  the 
Press  Club  to  Dana.  "Well,"  said  Dana,  "how  could 
you  expect  to  get  a  man  in  that  department  who  wouldn't 
speculate?" — a  rejoinder  that  BIgelow  rightly  thought  a 
little  shocking.  But  Whiting  filled  his  position  with  an 
integrity  that  was  not  only  absolute,  but  never  even  ques- 
tioned; and  with  a  quickness  of  Intelligence,  soundness  of 
judgment,  and  scrupulous  accuracy  that  made  his  death 
In  the  fall  of  1882  a  shock  to  down-town  New  York.  Had 
he  lived  longer  he  would  have  become  a  figure  of  national 
prominence.  The  words  of  a  memorial  pamphlet  Issued 
In  his  honor  were  not  a  whit  exaggerated: 

His  ability  to  unravel  a  difficult  situation  in  Wall  Street  was 
remarkable.  In  the  event  of  a  sudden  crisis,  the  facts  bearing 
on  it  were  immediately  ascertained  and  lucidly  exposed;  and  the 
service  thus  rendered  in  the  early  editorials  of  the  Evening  Post 
has  often  proved  the  means  of  turning  a  morning  of  panic  into 
an  afternoon  of  confidence.     His  service  in  arresting  the  progress 


GODWIN'S  EDITORSHIP  425 

of  distrust  on  such  occasions  has  perhaps  never  been  fully  esti- 
mated. The  widespread  feeling  of  regret  in  Wall  Street  on  the 
news  of  his  decease  was  in  no  small  degree  expressive  of  the  loss 
of  a  helmsman  in  whom  all  had  been  accustomed  to  trust. 

Becoming  financial  editor  In  1868,  It  was  he  who  con- 
demned the  Federal  Government's  interference  In  the 
''Black  Friday"  crisis,  when  Its  sudden  sale  of  $4,000,000 
in  gold  In  New  York  city  destroyed  the  plans  of  Jay  Gould 
and  James  FIsk,  jr.,  for  cornering  the  gold  market. 
Whiting's  contention  was  that  the  importation  of  gold 
from  Europe  and  other  points  would  have  crushed  the 
corner  anyway,  and  that  It  was  not  the  Treasury's  busi- 
ness to  Intervene  in  a  battle  between  rival  gangs  of  spec- 
ulators, particularly  since  It  had  promised  not  to  sell  gold 
without  due  notice.  He  believed  In  hard  money  and  wrote 
many  of  the  Post's  editorials  against  the  greenback  move- 
ment. Being  totally  opposed  to  the  coinage  of  silver  by 
the  United  States  so  long  as  other  nations  declined  to  co- 
operate in  establishing  the  double  standard  upon  a 
permanent  basis,  for  years  he  daily  placarded  the  depre- 
ciation of  the  standard  silver  dollar  at  the  head  of  the 
Post's  money  column — a  device  that  greatly  irritated 
silver  men.  His  rugged  strength  of  character  was  well 
set  off  by  a  rugged  body,  for  he  was  broad-shouldered, 
deep-chested,  and  an  expert  horseman,  boxer,  and 
wrestler.     No  man  in  the  office  was  better  liked. 

The  telegraph  editor  under  Nordhoff  was  Augustus 
Maverick,  known  to  all  students  of  journalism  by  his 
volume  on  "Henry  J.  Raymond  and  th~e  New  York 
Press" ;  a  good  newspaper  man,  but  a  swaggering,  egotis- 
tical fellow,  whose  Irish  hot  temper  and  tendency  to 
domineer  over  others  marked  him  for  a  stormy  career. 
He  was  soon  dismissed  from  the  Post  for  insubordina- 
tion, he  made  an  unfortunate  marriage,  and  his  life  had 
a  tragic  end.  The  musical  editor,  William  F.  Williams, 
was  for  some  time  also  organist  of  St.  George's  Church. 
Those  were  the  days  of  Mapleson  and  Italian  opera, 
when  a  genuinely  critical  review  would  have  been  thought 
cruel,  and  Williams  supplied  the  perfunctory  and  kindly 


426  THE  EVENING  POST 

notices  wanted  by  the  managers ;  the  distribution  of  tickets 
in  return  was  always  generous.  He  was  a  burly,  genial 
fellow,  a  veritable  Count  Fosco  in  physical  appearance, 
and  with  something  of  the  Indolence  which  accorded  with 
his  flesh.  When  he  found  that  J.  Ranken  Towse  was 
keenly  Interested  in  the  theater,  he  gladly  permitted 
Towse  to  represent  him  upon  even  highly  important  occa- 
sions; and  thus  was  responsible  for  the  beginnings  of 
dramatic  criticism  of  a  high  order  in  the  Post. 

From  one  point  of  view,  Parke  Godwin  will  be  seen  to 
have  succeeded  to  editorial  control  of  an  influential  organ, 
ably  equipped  and  officered,  and  making  from  $50,000 
to  $75,000  a  year  for  its  owners.  From  another  point  of 
view,  he  succeeded  to  an  irrepressible  conflict,  and  the 
Evening  Post  was  only  the  arena  In  which  he  was  to  fight 
to  the  bitter  end  with  a  wary,  persistent,  and  experienced 
antagonist.  The  struggle  was  between  the  Bryant  and 
Henderson  families  for  possession  of  the  Post;  between 
the  counting  room  and  the  editorial  room  for  the  dicta- 
tion of  its  policy.  It  had  covertly  begun  while  Bryant 
was  alive,  and  now  became  open. 

Isaac  Henderson  by  1868  was  in  a  well  entrenched 
position.  He  had  one-half  of  the  stock  of  the  newspaper, 
fifty  or  even  fifty-one  shares;  he  owned  the  building  out- 
right; his  son,  Isaac,  jr.,  was  in  training  to  succeed  him 
as  publisher;  and  his  son-in-law,  Watson  R.  Sperry,  an 
able  and  honorable  young  graduate  of  Yale,  had  become 
managing  editor.  It  was  becoming  plain  that  Henderson 
wished  to  acquire  unquestioned  control,  to  install  Sperry 
as  editor,  and  make  the  Evening  Post  a  family  possession. 
What  was  the  character  of  the  man  who  thus  seemed  on 
the  point  of  obtaining  "Bryant's  newspaper"? 

It  would  be  easy,  from  the  evidence  of  his  enemies,  to 
take  too  harsh  a  view  of  Isaac  Henderson.  We  must 
remember  that  standards  of  political  and  business  moral- 
ity were  low  after  the  Civil  War.  The  fairest  judgment 
is  that  Henderson  was  simply  an  average  product  of  the 
days  which,  while  they  produced  Peter  Cooper,  produced 
also  Jim  Fisk,  Daniel  Drew,  and  Jay  Gould.     His  con- 


GODWIN'S  EDITORSHIP  427 

stant  thought  was  of  dollars  and  cents.  On  Sundays  he 
was  a  prominent  member  of  a  Brooklyn  Methodist 
church ;  on  weekdays  he  was  intent  upon  driving  the  hard- 
est bargain  he  legitimately  could.  He  built  up  the  Eve- 
ning Post  from  a  weak  and  struggling  journal  Into  a  great 
property,  which  in  one  year  of  the  war  divided  more 
than  $200,000  in  profits;  from  a  $7  a  week  clerk  he  be- 
came a  millionaire.  His  tastes  were  mercenary,  and  he 
had  the  sharpness  of  a  Yankee  horse-trader,  but  there  is 
no  conclusive  evidence  that  he  ever  did  what  the  business 
man  of  his  time  would  have  called  a  clearly  dishonest 
act.  When  he  undertook  to  acquire  the  site  of  his  build- 
ing, owned  by  the  Old  Dutch  Church,  he  made  an  investi- 
gation, found  that  there  was  a  two-inch  strip  fronting  on 
Broadway  that  the  church  did  not  own,  quietly  obtained 
title  to  it,  and — if  we  may  believe  the  Evening  Telegram 
of  July  29,  1879 — in  the  subsequent  negotiations 
"profited  by  his  discovery  in  the  pleasant  sum  of  $125,- 
000,  the  largest  price  ever  paid  for  a  lot  two  inches  wide." 
At  the  time  many  thought  such  an  exploit  creditable,  and 
Henderson  fitted  his  time. 

Henderson  faced  his  gravest  charge  when  in  January, 
1864,  he  was  dismissed  from  the  office  of  Navy  Agent  in 
New  York  on  the  ground  that  he  had  accepted  commis- 
sions upon  contracts  let  for  the  government.  Gideon 
Welles's  Diary  for  the  summer  of  1864  contains  many 
references  to  this  affair.  It  states  that  on  one  occasion 
Welles  discussed  the  matter  with  Lincoln,  "who  there- 
upon brought  out  a  correspondence  that  had  taken  place 
between  himself  and  W.  C.  Bryant.  The  latter  averred 
that  H.  was  innocent,  and  denounced  Savage,  the  prin- 
cipal witness  against  him,  because  arrested  and  under 
bonds.  To  this  the  President  replied  that  the  character 
of  Savage  before  his  arrest  was  as  good  as  Henderson's 
before  he  was  arrested.  He  stated  that  he  knew  nothing 
of  H.'s  alleged  malfeasance  until  brought  to  his  notice 
by  me,  in  a  letter,  already  written,  for  his  removal;  that 
he  inquired  of  me  if  I  was  satisfied  he  was  guilty;  that 
I  said  he  was;  and  that  he  then  directed,  or  said  to  me, 


428  THE  EVENING  POST 

'Go  ahead,  let  him  be  removed.'  "  It  Is  a  fact  that  Bryant 
never  wavered  In  his  faith  In  his  partner.  The  charges 
had  their  origin  In  the  malice  of  Thurlow  Weed,  who, 
angered  by  persistent  attacks  made  upon  him  by  the 
Evening  Post,  sought  out  the  Information  which  he  be- 
lieved to  justify  them,  and  laid  them  before  Welles.  In 
May,  1865,  they  came  to  a  trial  in  the  Federal  Circuit 
Court  under  Judge  Nelson.  The  prosecution  brought 
forward  a  strong  array  of  legal  talent,  while  Henderson 
was  represented  by  Judge  Pierrepont  and  Wm.  M. 
Evarts;  the  case  against  him  utterly  broke  down,  the 
judge  said  as  much  in  his  charge,  and  without  leaving 
their  seats  the  jury  rendered  a  verdict  of  acquittal. 

Circumstances,  however,  inclined  many  to  regard  the 
verdict  as  one  of  "Not  Proved"-  only.  It  is  important 
to  note  that  Parke  Godwin,  then  owner  of  one-third  of  the 
Post,  stated  in  a  letter  to  Bryant,  July  31,  1865,  his 
reasons  for  thinking  the  charges  true: 

I  infer  from  a  remark  made  by  Mrs.  Bryant,  on  Saturday  even- 
ing, that  she  still  has  confidence  in  Mr.  Henderson,  and  as  I  have 
not,  I  will  tell  you  why.  I  will  do  so  in  writing,  because  I  have 
found  writing  less  liable  to  mistake  or  misconstruction  than  what 
is  said  by  word  of  mouth. 

I.  My  impressions  are  quite  decided  that  Mr.  H.  has  been 
guilty  of  the  malpractices  charged  upon  him  by  the  government, 
for  these  reasons:  (i)  His  own  clerk  (Mr.  Blood)  admitted  the 
receipt  of  $70,000  as  commissions,  and  that  these  were  deposited 
by  Mr.  Henderson  as  his  own,  in  his  own  bank;  (2)  the  prose- 
cuting attorneys,  Mr.  Noyes,  Judge  Bosworth,  D.  S.  Dickinson, 
asserted  that  over  $100,000,  as  they  are  able  to  prove  positively, 
were  paid  into  his  office  as  commissions;  Mr.  Noyes  told  me  that 
there  could  be  no  doubt  of  this;  (3)  other  lawyers  (Mr.  Mar- 
bury,  for  instance)  assure  me  that  clients  of  theirs  know  of  the 
habits  of  the  office  in  this  respect,  and  would  testify  if  legally 
called  upon;  (4)  his  private  bank  account  shows  very  large  trans- 
actions, which  are  said  to  correspond  singularly  v^^ith  the  entries 
in  the  books  of  the  contractors  implicated  with  him. 

II.  Supposing  him  not  guilty,  the  efforts  he  made  and  was 
willing  to  make  to  screen  himself  from  prosecution,  were  to  say 
the  least  singular ;  but  they  were  more  than  that ;  they  were  of  a 


GODWIN'S  EDITORSHIP  429 

kind  no  upright  citizen  could  resort  to  or  sanction.  He  tried  to 
tamper  with  the  Grand  Jury,  he  tried  to  buy  up  the  District 
Attorney,  he  "secured,"  as  D.  D.  told  me,  the  petit  jury,  and 
he  was  negotiating,  at  the  time  the  trial  came  on,  to  purchase 
Fox.  These  are  things  difficult  to  reconcile  with  any  supposition 
of  the  man's  integrity  or  honor. 

III.  Admitting  him,  however,  to  be  wholly  innocent,  his  posi- 
tion before  the  public  has  become  such  that  it  is  a  source  of  the 
most  serious  mortification  and  embarrassment  to  the  conductors 
of  the  Evening  Post.  We  cannot  brand  a  defaulter,  condemn 
peculation,  urge  official  economy,  or  get  into  any  sort  of  contro- 
versy with  other  journals,  without  having  the  charges  against 
Henderson,  which  nine  tenths  of  the  public  believe  to  be  true, 
flung  in  our  faces.  Not  once,  but  two  dozen  times,  I  have  been 
shut  up  by  a  rejoinder  of  this  sort.  Mr.  Nordhoff  has  felt  this,  in 
his  private  intercourse  as  well  as  in  a  public  way,  to  such  an  extent 
that  he  has  told  me  peremptorily  and  positively  that  he  would 
not  continue  in  the  paper  if  Mr.  Henderson  retained  an  active 
part  in  connection  with  it.  Now,  it  seems  to  me  that  if  there 
were  any  feeling  of  delicacy  in  Mr.  Henderson,  any  regard  for 
the  sensitiveness  of  others,  any  care  for  the  reputation  and  inde- 
pendence of  the  paper,  he  would  be  willing  to  relieve  us  of  this 
most  injurious  and  unpleasant  predicament. 

IV.  I  will  add,  that  I  am  not  satisfied  with  his  management 
of  our  business  affairs;  he  gives  them  very  little  of  his  attention, 
though  he  pretends  to  do  so ;  he  is  largely  and  constantly  engaged 
in  outside  speculations,  in  grain,  provisions,  etc. ;  and  in  one 
instance,  as  our  books  show,  he  has  given  himself  a  fictitious  credit 
of  $7,000,  which  was  irregular.  .  .  . 

Whether  commissions  were  actually  taken  none  can 
now  say;  the  essential  fact  is  that  the  man  who  was  to  be 
editor  of  the  Post  had  thus  early  made  up  his  mind  to 
distrust  and  detest  the  tall,  florid  publisher  of  the  paper. 
Godwin  actually  proposed  to  Henderson  at  this  date 
that  the  latter  sell  out  to  William  Dorsheimer,  a  well- 
known  lawyer,  later  lieutenant-governor,  who  was  willing 
to  buy,  but  Henderson  naturally  refused  to  leave  under 
fire.  Godwin  ultimately  consented  to  stay  with  the  Post 
until  Bryant  had  refreshed  himself  from  his  Civil  War 
labors  by  a  European  trip;  but  in  1868  he  sold  his  third 
share  to  Bryant  and  Henderson  for  $200,000,  and  gladly 


430  THE  EVENING  POST 

left  the  office  for  the  time  being.  Nordhoff  remained 
longer,  but  with  unabated  dislike  for  Henderson,  and  at 
the  crisis  of  the  Tweed  fight,  as  we  have  seen,  thought 
It  necessary  to  resign.  Most  of  the  editorial  employees 
of  the  Post  disliked  the  publisher.  He  practiced  a  penny- 
pinching  economy.  The  building  superintendent  was  re- 
quired to  send  up  a  dally  statement  of  the  coal  used.  Ill- 
paid  workers,  coming  Into  his  office  to  ask  for  more  wages, 
would  state  their  case  and  then  note  that  his  eyes  were 
fixed  suggestively  upon  the  maxim,  one  of  many  framed 
on  the  walls,  "Learn  to  Labor  and  to  Wait."  But  Bryant 
seems  never  to  have  lost  his  confidence  In  him.  Every 
one  agrees  that  one  of  Henderson's  best  traits  was  an 
almost  boyish  admiration  and  deference  for  Bryant,  and 
that  he  would  never  do  anything  to  offend  the  poet. 

By  the  middle  seventies  the  Civil  War  charges  against 
Henderson  were  largely  forgotten.  The  danger  to  be 
apprehended  from  his  activities  and  ambition  was  not 
that  the  Evening  Post  would  be  brought  under  dishonest 
management,  but  simply  that  It  would  be  brought  under 
a  management  which  thought  first  and  always  of  money- 
making,  steered  its  course  for  the  greatest  patronage,  and 
shrank  from  such  self-sacrificing  independence  as  the 
paper  had  displayed  in  the  Bank  war  or  the  early  stages 
of  the  slavery  struggle.  Henderson  never  thought  of 
it  as  a  sternly  Impartial  guide  of  public  opinion;  he 
thought  of  it  as  a  producer  of  revenue.  His  whole  later 
record  as  a  publisher,  as  Bryant  aged,  shows  this. 

The  seventies  were  the  hey-day  of  the  "reading  notice," 
and  in  printing  veiled  advertisements  the  Post  only  fol- 
lowed nearly  all  other  newspapers.  Washington  Gladden 
left  the  Independent,  the  leading  religious  weekly  of  the 
day,  recently  edited  by  Beecher  and  Tllton,  In  1871,  be- 
cause no  fewer  than  three  departments — an  Insurance 
Department,  a  Financial  Department,  and  a  department 
of  "Publishers'  Notices" — were  so  edited  and  printed 
that,  though  pure  advertising  at  $1  a  line,  they  appeared 
to  a  majority  of  readers  as  editorial  matter.  These  ad- 
vertising items  were  frequently  quoted  in  other  journals 


GODWIN'S  EDITORSHIP  431 

as  utterances  of  the  Independent.  The  Times  as  late  as 
1886  was  placed  in  an  embarrassing  position  by  divulgence 
of  the  fact  that  it  had  received  $1,200  from  the  Bell 
Telephone  Company  for  publishing  an  advertisement 
which  many  readers  would  take  to  be  an  editorial.  No 
"reading  notices"  ever  appeared  in  the  editorial  columns 
of  the  Post,  and  Whiting  would  Instantly  have  resigned 
had  an  effort  been  made  to  place  one  In  the  financial 
columns;  but  they  were  discreditably  frequent  in  the  news 
pages.  Occasionally  a  string  of  them  would  emerge  under 
the  heading,  "Shopping  Notes";  at  Christmas  they  were 
prominently  displayed  on  the  front  page  as  "Holiday 
Notices";  and  sometimes  the  unwary  reader  would  com- 
mence what  looked  like  a  poem  and  find  it  ending: 

Ye  who  with  languor  droop  and  fade, 
Or  ye  whom  fiercer  illness  thrills; 
Call  the  blest  compound  to  your  aid — 
Trust  to  Brandreth's  precious  pills. 

But  where  the  influence  of  the  business  office  was  seen 
in  Its  most  pernicious  form  was  in  efforts  to  muzzle  the 
treatment  of  the  news  and  to  color  editorial  opinion. 
W.  G.  Boggs,  now  a  tall,  thin,  white-haired  old  man,  was 
the  advertising  manager,  with  a  wide  and  intimate  ac- 
quaintance among  commercial  men  and  politicians,  and 
with  an  endless  succession  of  axes  to  grind.  "He  was 
the  most  familiar  representative  of  the  publication  in  the 
editorial  rooms,"  says  Mr.  Towse,  "and  manifested  a 
special  Interest  In  the  suppression  of  any  paragraph,  or 
allusion,  that  might  offend  the  dispensers  of  political  ad- 
vertising, which  in  those  days  was  an  important  source 
of  revenue."  Tammany  gave  much  printing  to  the 
Post's  job  office  until  1871.  Henderson  himself  almost 
never  interfered — Mr.  Sperry  recalls  only  one  harmless 
instance  during  his  managing  editorship.  But  in  1872 
a  dramatic  incident  lit  up  the  situation  as  by  a  bolt  of 
lightning.  Arthur  G.  Sedgwick  had  just  become  man- 
aging editor,  giving  the  editorial  page  new  strength.  At 
this  time  there  was  much  talk  of  maladministration  and 


432  THE  EVENING  POST 

graft  in  the  Parks  Department.  One  day  Sedgwick,  chat- 
ting with  J.  Ranken  Towse  upon  the  subject,  remarked 
that  although  the  rascality  was  clear,  there  appeared  no 
indication  in  it  of  connivance  by  the  Commissioner,  Van 
Nort.  Towse  dissented,  saying  that  the  man  was  hand 
in  glove  with  Tammany,  and  must  be  fully  cognizant  of 
all  that  was  going  on.  He  suggested  that  Van  Nort  had 
escaped  suspicion  because  he  was  a  social  favorite,  su- 
perior in  manners  and  culture  to  most  politicians,  and 
because  he  had  used  his  advertising  patronage  in  a  man- 
ner to  please  all  New  York  papers.  To  enforce  his  argu- 
ment, he  directed  Sedgwick's  attention  to  a  number  of 
highly  suspicious  transactions.     Sedgwick,  he  states: 

saw  the  points  promptly,  and  bade  me  write  an  editorial  para- 
graph embodying  them  and  demanding  explanations.  I  told  him 
it  would  be  as  much  as  my  place  was  worth  to  write  such  an 
article.  He  replied,  somewhat  hotly,  that  he,  not  I,  was  respon- 
sible for  the  editorial  page,  and  peremptorily  told  me  to  write  as 
he  had  directed.  So  I  furnished  the  paragraph,  which,  to  the  best 
of  my  recollection,  was  largely  an  enumeration  of  undeniable  facts 
for  which  Van  Nort,  as  the  head  of  his  department,  was  officially 
responsible,  and  which  he  ought  to  be  ready  to  explain.  It  was 
put  into  type  and  printed  as  an  editorial  in  the  first  edition.  The 
paper  was  scarcely  off  the  press  when  the  expected  storm  broke. 
Mr.  Henderson,  ordinarily  cold  and  self-restrained,  passed  hur- 
riedly through  my  room  in  a  state  of  manifest  excitement,  with 
an  early  copy  of  the  edition  in  his  hand.  Entering  the  adjoining 
room  of  Mr.  Sedgwick,  he  denounced  my  unlucky  article,  and 
demanded  its  instant  suppression.  A  brief  but  heated  altercation 
followed ;  Henderson  insisting  that  the  article  was  scandalous  and 
libelous,  and  must  be  withdrawn,  and  Sedgwick  asserting  his  sole 
authority  in  the  matter  and  declaring  that,  so  long  as  he  was 
managing  editor,  the  article  would  remain  as  it  stood.  Finally 
Henderson  withdrew,  but  meanwhile  the  press  had  been  stopped, 
and  the  objectionable  paragraph  removed  from  the  form.  Before 
the  afternoon  was  over  Sedgwick  handed  in  his  resignation  and 
returned  to  the  service  of  the  Nation. 

As  Mr.  Towse  adds,  probably  Bryant,  now  too  old  to 
be  much  in  the  office,  never  knew  the  precise  truth  of  this 
affair;  and  If  he  did,  may  have  thought  that  his  inter- 


GODWIN'S  EDITORSHIP  433 

ference  would  be  bootless,  and  would  only  intensify  the 
irritation  of  the  episode.  But  we  can  see  why  men 
jocularly  called  Henderson  "the  wicked  partner,"  and  the 
Post  a  Spenlow  and  Jorkins  establishment. 

Parke  Godwin  maintained  his  attitude  of  constant  sus- 
picion toward  the  paper's  publisher.  Two  years  after 
the  sale  of  his  third  share  of  the  Post,  he  obtained  evi- 
dence which  convinced  him,  as  he  wrote  Bryant,  that  he 
had  been  overreached  by  Henderson  "to  the  extent  of  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars  at  least."  His  efforts  to  insti- 
tute an  inquiry  came  to  nothing,  and  he  ended  them  by 
sending  the  poet  a  solemn  note  of  warning;  "I  regard 
Mr.  Henderson  as  a  far-seeing  and  adroit  rogue;  his 
design  from  the  beginning  has  been  and  still  is  to  get 
exclusive  possession  of  the  Evening  Post,  at  much  less 
than  its  real  value,  which  I  expected  to  prove  was  much 
more  nearly  a  million  than  half  a  million  dollars"  (July, 
1870).  Early  in  the  seventies  he  took  charge  of  the  Post 
for  various  short  periods,  and  what  he  then  observed  in- 
creased his  apprehensions,  or,  as  Henderson's  defenders 
would  say,  his  prejudices.  At  the  beginning  of  1878  he 
prevailed  upon  Bryant  to  have  an  investigation  of  the 
newspaper's  finances  made  by  Judge  Monell,  and  the 
result  was  the  reorganization  already  chronicled. 

In  brief.  Judge  Monell's  inquiries  showed  that  very 
large  sums  were  owed  to  Bryant  by  Henderson,  and  that 
for  a  long  period  Henderson's  private  financial  affairs, 
which  had  been  subjected  to  a  severe  strain  by  his  erec- 
tion of  the  new  building,  had  not  been  properly  separated 
from  those  of  the  Evening  Post,  Had  it  not  been  for 
these  disclosures,  the  astute  business  manager  would  un- 
doubtedly have  been  able  to  step  forward  soon  after 
Bryant's  death  and  take  control.  But  he  could  not  im- 
mediately meet  his  debts  to  the  Bryant  family,  and  was 
forced  to  consent  to  an  arrangement  which  wrecked  what- 
ever plans  in  that  direction  he  may  have  laid.  Henderson 
owned  fifty  shares,  Bryant  forty-eight,  Julia  Bryant  one, 
and  Judge  Monell  one.  Under  the  new  arrangement 
Henderson  pledged  thirty  of  his  shares  to  Bryant  as  se- 


434  THE  EVENING  POST 

curity  for  his  debts,  and  twenty  to  Parke  Godwin,  who 
reentered  the  company,  while  Bryant  also  pledged  twenty 
shares  to  Godwin.  The  Board  of  Trustees  was  so  consti- 
tuted that  the  position  of  the  Bryant  family  was  made 
secure.  Henderson  intended  to  move  heaven  and  earth 
to  redeem  his  shares;  but,  wrote  Judge  Monell  in  an  opin- 
ion for  the  family,  even  if  he  did  that  "he  cannot  change 
the  direction  nor  regain  control.  This  can  only  be  done 
by  persons  holding  a  majority  of  the  stock." 

Godwin  when  made  editor  was  regarded  as  one  of  the 
ablest  and  most  experienced  journalists  in  New  York. 
Far  behind  him  were  the  youthful,  enthusiastic  days  of 
the  forties,  when  he  had  been  an  ardent  apostle  of  Four- 
ierism,  had  applauded  the  Brook  Farm  experiment,  help- 
ing edit  the  organ  of  that  community,  the  Harbinger, 
and  had  advised  his  friend  Charles  A.  Dana  that  it  was 
possible  for  a  young  journalist  to  cultivate  high  thinking 
and  high  ambitions  in  New  York  on  $i,ooo  a  year.  He 
had  worked  like  a  Trojan  then  on  the  Post,  and  had  made 
several  unsuccessful  ventures  into  the  magazine  field.  Far 
behind  him  were  the  pinched  years  of  the  fifties  when, 
having  temporarily  left  the  Post,  he  was  associate  editor 
of  the  struggling  Putnam's  Magazine,  and  gave  it  na- 
tional reputation  by  his  vigorous  assaults  upon  the  slavery 
forces  and  President  Pierce.  It  was  with  a  touch  of  bit- 
terness that  he  had  complained  in  i860,  when  he  rejoined 
the  Evening  Post,  that  the  latter  had  never  paid  him  more 
than  $50  a  week.  But,  purchasing  Bigelow's  share  of  the 
paper  at  a  bargain,  its  Civil  War  profits  made  him  rich. 

The  editorial  writing  done  by  Godwin  had  not  the 
eloquence  or  finish  of  Bryant's,  but  it  showed  an  equal 
grasp  of  political  principles,  and  a  better  understanding 
of  economic  problems.  He  was  a  real  scholar,  the  author 
of  many  books,  able  to  appeal  to  cultivated  audiences. 
His  legal,  literary,  and  historical  studies  gave  him  a  dis- 
tinct advantage  over  the  ordinary  journalist  of  the  time, 
not  college  bred  and  too  busy  for  wide  reading.  Young 
Henry  Watterson  justly  wrote  of  him  in  1871,  when  he 
had  temporarily  left  his  profession  again: 


GODWIN'S  EDITORSHIP  435 

It  is  a  thousand  pities  that  a  man  of  Parke  Godwin's  strength 
of  mind  and  strength  of  principle  is  by  any  chance  or  cause  cut 
of?  from  his  proper  sphere  of  usefulness  and  power,  the  press  of 
New  York.  He  has  a  clearer  head  and  less  gush  than  Greeley, 
and  he  is  hardly  any  lazier  than  Manton  Marble,  though  older; 
he  writes  with  as  much  dash  and  point  as  Hurlburt,  and  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  practice  of  journalism  is  not  inferior  to  that  of  Greeley 
and  Nordhoff.  No  leading  writer  of  the  day  makes  more  impres- 
sion on  the  public  mind  than  he  could  make,  and  in  losing  him 
along  with  Hudson  the  journals  of  the  great  metropolis  are  real 
and  not  apparent  sufferers.  Godwin  is  eminently  a  leader-writer, 
and  whenever  he  goes  to  work  on  a  newspaper  the  addition  is  sure 
to  be  felt  forthwith. 

Unfortunately,  he  was  now  sixty-two,  and  well  beyond 
his  prime,  while  the  defect  of  which  Watterson  speaks, 
his  laziness,  had  grown  upon  him.  In  the  past  he  had 
been  noted  for  his  editorial  aggressiveness,  and  the  most 
"radical"  of  the  Posfs  utterances  In  the  Civil  War  are 
attributable  to  him.  It  was  once  said  that,  in  the  Evening 
Post  office  In  the  seventies,  "he  was  a  Hon  in  a  den  of 
Daniels."  George  Gary  Eggleston,  who  worked  with 
him  when  he  was  editor  1878-188 1,  tells  us  that  "he 
knew  how  to  say  strong  things  in  a  strong  way.  He  could 
wield  the  rapier  of  subtle  sarcasm,  and  the  bludgeon  of 
denunciation  with  an  equally  skilful  hand.  Sometimes  he 
brought  even  a  trip-hammer  into  play  with  startling  ef- 
fect." Eggleston  cites  an  Incident  which  happened  during 
Sarah  Bernhardt's  first  visit  to  New  York  In  1880.  A 
sensational  clergyman,  who  always  denounced  the  theater 
as  the  gateway  of  hell,  sent  the  Evening  Post  a  vehement 
protest  against  the  space  It  was  giving  Mme.  Bernhardt, 
whom  he  characterized  as  a  woman  of  immoral  charac- 
ter and  dissolute  conduct.  This  letter  he  headed,  "Quite 
Enough  of  Sara  Bernhardt."  Godwin  was  enraged. 
He  Instantly  penned  an  editorial  answer,  which  he  en- 
titled "Quite  Enough  of  Blank" — Blank  being  the  clergy- 
man's name,  used  In  full.  Pointing  out  that  Mme.  Bern- 
hardt had  asked  for  American  attention  solely  as  an  art- 
ist, that  the  Post  had  treated  her  only  In  that  light,  and 


436  THE  EVENING  POST 

that  the  charge  that  she  was  Immoral  was  totally  with- 
out supporting  evidence  anyway,  he  demolished  the  luck- 
less cleric.  But  Eggleston  deplores  "a  certain  constitu- 
tional indolence"  of  Godwin's  as  depriving  the  world  of 
the  fruits  of  his  ripest  powers,  and  this  fault  was  now  evi- 
dent. He  went  much  into  society,  he  sometimes  wrote 
his  editorials  in  bed  in  the  morning  and  sent  them  down 
by  messenger,  and  sometimes  a  promised  editorial  did  not 
appear. 

Upon  all  the  public  issues  which  had  importance  during 
Godwin's  editorship  the  position  of  the  Post  had  already 
been  well  fixed.  It  had  been  an  advocate  of  civil  service 
reform  early  in  the  sixties,  at  a  time  when  even  well- 
informed  men,  like  Henry  Adams  in  a  conversation  with 
E.  L.  Godkin,  spoke  of  it  only  as  "something  Prussian." 
It  had  urged  an  early  resumption  of  specie  payments,  had 
bitterly  opposed  the  Bland  Act  of  1878  for  the  coinage 
of  two  to  four  million  dollars'  worth  of  silver  monthly, 
saying  that  it  was  "a  public  disgrace,"  and  had  resisted 
the  greenback  party.  It  was  deeply  suspicious  of  pen- 
sions legislation,  and  had  applauded  Grant's  veto  of  the 
bounty  bill.  It  had  early  decided  that  Blaine  was  "one 
of  our  superfluous  statesmen,"  and  that  the  sooner  he 
was  discarded,  the  better.  It  had  said  in  1875  that  the 
Granger  movement  promised  to  leave  behind  it  a  valu- 
able legacy  of  general  railway  legislation  "which,  tested 
by  practice,  will  afford  us  a  foundation  for  our  future 
legislation  on  questions  of  transportation."  Year  in  and 
year  out  it  asked  for  a  lower  tariff — a  tariff  for  revenue 
only — and  attacked  all  other  forms  of  subsidy  for  pri- 
vate enterprises.  Godwin  had  no  momentous  decisions 
to  make. 

It  was  by  no  means  a  foregone  conclusion  in  1880  that 
the  Post  would  support  the  Republican  ticket,  for  in 
advance  of  the  Republican  Convention  it  showed  itself 
equally  hostile  to  Grant  (whom  tke  Times  was  advocat- 
ing) and  to  Blaine  (the  Tribune^ s  favorite).  But  as 
soon  as  word  came  of  Garfield's  nomination,  it  hailed  it 
as  "a  grand  result,"  and  "a  glorious  escape  from  Grant 


GODWIN'S  EDITORSHIP  437 

and  Blaine."  Of  Gen.  Hancock,  the  Democratic  nominee, 
the  Post  remarked  that  his  only  recommendation  was  his 
military  record,  and  that  his  party  proposed  to  fill  the 
Presidential  chair  with  the  uniform  of  a  major-general, 
a  sword,  and  a  pair  of  spurs. 

During  the  final  months  of  1879,  and  throughout  1880, 
Godwin  and  Henderson  met  and  spoke  to  each  other  with 
grave,  cold  courtesy.  They  even  consulted  with  each 
other.  But  beneath  the  surface  their  mutual  hostility 
never  slackened,  and  their  associates  knew  they  were  at 
daggers  drawn.    The  crisis  could  not  long  be  delayed. 


CHAPTER  TWENTY 

THE  VILLARD  PURCHASE :  CARL  SCHURZ  EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 

Within  three  years  after  Bryant's  death  his  news- 
paper, still  prosperous  and  well-edited,  was  suddenly  sold, 
and  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  ablest  triumvirate  ever  en- 
listed by  an  American  daily.  The  transfer  was  announced 
in  the  Issue  of  May  25,  188 1 : 

The  Evening  Post  has  passed  under  the  control  of  Mr.  Carl 
Schurz,  Mr.  Horace  White,  and  Mr.  E.  L.  Godkin,  who  yes- 
terday completed  the  purchase  of  a  large  majority  of  its  stock. 
To-morrow  Mr.  Schurz  will  assume  the  editorial  direction  of  the 
journal. 

It  was  generally  known  that  the  real  buyer  was  Henry 
Villard,  but  for  several  weeks  this  fact  was  not  only  con- 
cealed, but  for  some  reason  was  explicitly  denied  both  by 
the  Post  and  Mr.  Villard.  On  July  i  there  appeared  a 
supplementary  announcement : 

Beginning  with  the  next  number  the  Nation  will  be  issued  as 
the  weekly  edition  of  the  New  York  Evening  Post. 

It  will  retain  the  name  and  have  the  same  editorial  management 
as  heretofore,  and  an  increased  stafE  of  contributors,  but  its  con- 
tents will  in  the  main  have  already  appeared  in  the  Evening  Post. 

This  consolidation  will  considerably  enlarge  the  field  and  raise 
the  character  of  the  Evening  Post's  literary  criticism  and  news. 
It  will  also  add  to  its  staff  of  literary  contributors  the  very  remark- 
able list  of  writers  in  every  department  with  which  readers  of  the 
Nation  have  long  been  familiar. 

To  few  Interested  in  the  Post  could  its  sale  have  been  a 
surprise.  It  is  true  that  Parke  Godwin  had  many  reasons, 
sentimental  and  practical,  for  continuing  his  editorship 
and  maintaining  the  Bryant  family's  half-ownership.  He 
appreciated  the  argument  which  John  Bigelow  addressed 
to  him  when  he  talked  of  giving  both  up.     "Bethink  you," 

438 


CARL  SCHURZ  439 

wrote  Bigelow,  "that  now  and  for  the  first  time  In  your 
long  career  of  journalism  you  have  absolute  control  of  a 
paper  of  traditional  respectability  and  authority,  in  which 
you  can  say  just  what  you  please  on  all  subjects."  His 
two  sons  seemed  Interested  in  making  journalism  their 
career.  He  had  an  able  staff,  several  of  whom — as  the 
financial  editor  Whiting,  the  literary  editor  Eggleston, 
and  the  dramatic  editor  Towse — were  unexcelled  In  their 
departments,  while  two  valuable  additions,  Robert  Burch 
and  Robert  Bridges  (later  editor  of  Scribner's)  had  been 
made  to  the  news  room.  But  Parke  Godwin  was  sixty- 
five  this  year.  He  had  undertaken  the  writing  of  Bryant's 
life  In  two  volumes,  and  the  editing  of  the  poet's  works 
in  four  more,  while  he  wished  to  complete  his  history  of 
France,  begun  before  the  war.  He  believed  that  it  would 
be  well  for  his  family,  after  his  death,  to  have  its  money 
Invested  in  a  less  precarious  enterprise  than  a  newspaper. 
Above  all,  his  relations  with  Isaac  Henderson  had  now 
come  to  a  breaking  point. 

An  open  quarrel  between  them  in  the  spring  of  1881 
ended  In  a  clear  assertion  by  Godwin  of  his  right  to  con- 
trol the  editorial  policy.  He  thought  for  the  moment  of 
bringing  Edward  H.  Clement,  a  young  Boston  journalist, 
later  well  known  for  his  editorship  and  regeneration  of 
the  Transcript,  to  be  his  associate.  But  at  this  juncture 
he  accidentally  discovered  that  Henderson  was  negotiat- 
ing for  the  sale  of  his  half  of  the  Evening  Post  to  some 
prominent  capitalist,  and  leaped  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  man  was  Jay  Gould.  In  this  he  was  doubtless  mis- 
taken. But  he  was  deeply  alarmed  by  the  thought  that 
the  Bryant  family  might  be  associated  with  a  notorious 
gambler  and  manipulator,  whose  object  would  have  been 
to  make  the  Post  a  disreputable  organ  of  his  schemes. 

Almost  simultaneously  he  learned  from  Carl  Schurz, 
then  in  the  last  months  of  his  service  as  Secretary  of  the 
Interior,  that  he,  Horace  White,  and  Henry  Villard  were 
searching  for  a  daily.  Into  which  they  were  prepared  to 
put  a  considerable  amount  of  capital,  and  that  they  were 
negotiating  with  the  owners  of  the  Commercial  AdveV' 


440  THE  EVENING  POST 

tiser,  but  would  prefer  the  Evening  Post.  Godwin,  given 
a  month  to  consider,  consulted  his  most  judicious  friends 
— Samuel  J.  Tilden,  Joseph  H.  Choate,  President  Gar- 
field, and  others — who  all  advised  him  to  dispose  of  the 
paper.  Choate  told  him  that  Henderson  had  come  to 
his  office  for  legal  advice  as  to  the  possibility  of  somehow 
destroying  Godwin's  control.  -With  great  reluctance,  the 
Bryant  heirs  concluded  to  sell.  The  paper  was  then 
earning  $50,000  a  year,  and  Horace  White  finally  agreed 
to  the  payment  of  $450,000  for  the  family's  half,  which 
carried  control  of  the  board  of  trustees.  For  a  time 
Henderson  was  disinclined  to  sell  the  other  half,  but  with 
the  aid  of  Godwin,  to  whom  Henderson  was  still  in  debt, 
he  was  soon  brought  to  yield. 

How  did  Henry  Villard  come  to  purchase  the  Evening 
Post?  He  was  at  this  time  midway  in  his  amazing  career 
as  a  railway  builder.  Eight  years  before,  when  known 
only  as  a  young  German-American  who  had  proved  him- 
self one  of  the  ablest  and  most  daring  of  the  Civil  War 
correspondents,  he  had  become  the  American  representa- 
tive of  a  Protective  Committee  of  German  bondholders 
at  Frankfort.  This  body,  and  a  similar  one  which  he 
soon  joined,  had  large  holdings  in  Western  railways, 
which  Villard  had  been  asked  to  supervise.  Thus 
launched  into  finance,  by  his  ability,  energy,  and  deter- 
mination he  had  soon  made  a  large  fortune.  His  first 
extensive  undertakings  were  in  the  Pacific  Northwest, 
where  another  son  of  the  Palatinate,  John  Jacob  Astor, 
had  carved  out  a  career  before  him;  and  his  success  with 
the  Oregon  &  California  Railroad,  and  Oregon  Rail- 
way &  Navigation  Company  emboldened  him  in  1881- 
83  to  undertake  and  carry  through  the  completion  of  the 
Northern  Pacific.  His  interest  in  his  original  profession, 
and  a  wish  to  devote  his  money  to  some  large  public  end, 
led  him  while  busiest  with  this  great  undertaking  to  con- 
ceive the  plan  of  buying  a  metropolitan  paper  and  giving 
it  the  ablest  editors  procurable. 

Horace  White,  who  was  connected  in  New  York  with 
Mr.  Villard's  business  enterprises,  and  was  ready  to  re- 


Parke  Godwin 
Editor-in-Chief  1878-1881. 


Henry  Villard, 
Owner  1881-1900. 


Horace  White, 

Associate  Editor   1881-1899, 

Editor-in-Chief  1900-1903. 


Carl  Schurz, 
Editor-in-Chief  1881-1883 


CARL  SGHURZ  44 1 

enter  journalism,  undoubtedly  shared  in  this  conception. 
When  Godwin's  half  of  the  Post  had  been  purchased,  and 
Schurz  had  consented  to  become  editor-in-chief,  E.  L. 
Godkin  was  approached  with  the  offer  of  an  editorship 
and  a  share  of  the  stock.  He  wisely  refused  to  consider 
the  proposal  till  Henderson's  withdrawal  was  assured, 
and  then  accepted  it,  writing  Charles  Eliot  Norton  that 
he  did  so  because  he  was  weary  of  the  unlntermlttent  work 
involved  in  the  conduct  of  the  Nation,  because  he  knew 
that,  being  forty-nine,  his  vivacity  and  energy  must  de- 
cline, and  the  value  of  the  Nation  suffer  proportionately, 
and  because  he  wished  to  make  more  money  during  the 
few  working  years  left  to  him.  The  Nation,  in  fact,  was 
a  struggling  publication.  It  was  bought  by  the  proprie- 
tors of  the  Evening  Post,  Its  price  was  reduced  to  $3  a 
year,  and  Wendell  Phillips  Garrison,  its  literary  editor, 
who  was  Vlllard's  brother-in-law,  went  with  It  to  the 
Evening  Post  to  take  charge  of  its  weekly  issuance. 

The  new  owner  and  three  new  editors  had  long 
regarded  the  Evening  Post  with  high  respect.  Villard 
in  1857  h^d  applied  at  Its  office  for  work,  being  out  of 
employment  and  almost  penniless;  and  upon  his  offering 
to  go  to  India  to  report  the  Sepoy  Mutiny,  Bigelow  had 
offered  him  $20  for  every  letter  he  wrote  from  that 
country.  His  political  ideas  had  been  Identical  with  the 
Post's — for  example,  he  had  been  a  Liberal  Republican 
In  1872,  but  had  refused  to  follow  Greeley.  Godkin  had 
contributed  to  the  Evening  Post  in  the  fifties  upon  such 
topics  as  the  death  of  the  old  East  India  Company,  and 
we  have  seen  that  he  furnished  correspondence  from 
Paris  in  1862.  Like  his  friend  Norton,  he  had  long 
acknowledged  the  paper's  peculiar  elevation.  Horace 
White  had  contributed  in  the  late  seventies  upon  the 
silver  question.  Schurz  had  known  It  as  a  loyal  ally  In 
his  efforts  for  a  civil  service  law,  sound  money,  and 
reform  within  the  Republican  party,  while  it  Is  interest- 
ing to  note  that  under  Bryant  It  had  said  that  he  was  the 
strongest  man  in  the  Senate. 

Each  of  the  three  editors  had  his  own  title  to  distinc- 


442  THE  EVENING  POST 

tlon,  and  each  had  won  his  special  public  following.  Carl 
Schurz  had  been  constantly  in  the  public  eye  since  he  lent 
valuable  assistance  to  Lincoln  in  the  campaign  of  i860. 
The  German-Americans,  indeed,  had  known  of  him  much 
earlier,  for  as  a  youth  in  Germany,  aflame  with  revolu- 
tionary zeal,  his  military  services  in  the  uprising  of  1848, 
and  his  subsequent  romantic  rescue  of  Gottfried  Kinkel 
from  the  fortress  at  Spandau,  had  made  him  famous. 
In  1858,  writing  Kinkel  from  Milwaukee,  he  wondered 
a  little  over  his  steady  rise  In  reputation,  modestly  ex- 
plaining it  as  due  to  American  curiosity  in  "a  German 
who,  as  they  declare,  speaks  English  better  than  they  do, 
and  also  has  the  advantage  over  their  native  politicians 
of  possessing  a  passable  knowledge  of  European  con- 
ditions." It  was,  of  course,  really  due  to  appreciation  of 
his  eloquence,  versatility,  mental  power,  and  enthusiasm 
for  liberal  principles.  He  has  admitted  that  he  was  in- 
expressibly gratified  by  the  salvos  of  applause  with  which 
he  was  greeted  In  the  Chicago  Convention  of  i860.  For 
his  platform  advocacy  of  Lincoln  he  was  rewarded  with 
the  post  of  Minister  to  Spain,  which  he  early  resigned  to 
buckle  on  his  sword.  Then  came  his  sterling  service  first 
as  a  brigadier-general  and  later  as  major-general,  when 
he  fought  at  Chancellorsville,  Chattanooga,  and  Gettys- 
burg. His  investigative  trip  through  the  South  in  1865 
for  President  Johnson,  and  refusal  to  suppress  his  report 
because  it  did  not  support  Johnson's  views,  drew  national 
attention  to  his  aggressive  independence.  Six  years  In 
the  Senate,  where  he  was  unrivaled  for  his  discussions  of 
finance,  and  four  years  as  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  had 
added  to  his  fame  as  a  man  of  broad  views,  high  motives, 
and  unshakable  courage.  By  1881  he  was  recognized  as, 
next  to  Hamilton  and  Gallatin,  our  greatest  foreign-born 
statesman. 

Godkin  also  had  a  national  following — a  following  of 
Intellectual  liberals,  especially  strong  In  university  and 
professional  circles,  marshaled  by  the  Nation  since  he 
founded  It  in  1865.  He  had,  as  Lowell  said,  made  him- 
self "a  Power."     In  the  ability  with  which  the  weekly 


CARL  SCHURZ  443 

discussed  politics  and  social  questions,  the  trenchancy  of 
its  style,  and  the  soundness  of  its  literary  criticism,  it  was 
unapproached  by  anything  else  in  American — James 
Bryce  thought  also  in  British — journalism.  The  masses 
who  knew  Schurz  well  had  hardly  heard  of  it;  but  no  man 
of  cultivation  who  tried  to  keep  abreast  of  the  times 
neglected  it,  and  because  it  was  digested  by  newspaper 
editors  all  over  the  Union,  Godkin's  influence  was  deep 
and  wide.  James  Ford  Rhodes  gives  an  illustration  of 
this  influence  just  after  the  Nation  became  practically  the 
weekly  Evening  Post.  "Passing  a  part  of  the  winter  of 
1886  in  a  hotel  at  Thomasville,  Ga.,  it  chanced  that 
among  the  hundred  or  more  guests  there  were  eight  or 
ten  of  us  who  regularly  received  the  Nation  by  post. 
Ordinarily  it  arrived  in  the  Friday  noon  train  from 
Savannah,  and  when  we  came  from  our  midday  dinner 
into  the  hotel  oflice,  there,  in  our  respective  boxes,  easily 
seen,  and  from  their  peculiar  form  recognized  by  every 
one,  were  our  copies  of  the  Nation.  Occasionally  the 
papers  missed  connections  at  Savannah,  and  our  Nations 
did  not  arrive  till  after  supper.  It  used  to  be  said  by 
certain  scoffers  that  if  a  discussion  of  political  questions 
came  up  In  the  afternoon  of  one  of  those  days  of  dis- 
appointment, we  readers  were  mum;  but  in  the  late  eve- 
ning, after  having  digested  our  political  pabulum,  we 
were  ready  to  join  issue  with  any  antagonist." 

As  for  Horace  White,  he  was  best  known  in  the  Middle 
West,  where  he  had  entered  journalism  In  1854  as  a  re- 
porter for  the  Chicago  Daily  Journal,  Four  years  later, 
after  much  activity  in  behalf  of  the  free  soil  movement  in 
Kansas,  during  which  he  even  removed  to  the  Territory 
himself  and  went  through  the  preliminary  form  of  taking 
up  a  claim,  he  reported  the  Lincoln-Douglas  debates  for 
the  Chicago  Press  and  Tribune.  His  reminiscences  of 
those  weeks  of  Intimate  contact  with  Lincoln  fill  many 
pages  of  Herndon's  life  of  the  President,  and  constitute 
one  of  Its  most  interesting  chapters.  During  the  war  he 
was  Washington  correspondent  of  the  Chicago  Tribune, 
secretary  for  a  time  to  Stanton,  and  organizer  with  A,  S. 


444  THE  EVENING  POST 

Hill  and  Henry  Villard  of  a  news  agency  in  competition 
with  the  Associated  Press.  After  it,  for  nearly  a  decade, 
he  was  editor  and  one  of  the  principal  proprietors  of  the 
Tribune,  which  under  him  was  far  more  liberal  than  it 
has  ever  been  since.  But  he  was  valuable  to  the  Evening 
Post  chiefly  because  he  had  devoted  himself  for  years  to 
study  of  the  theory  of  banking  and  finance,  on  which  his 
articles  and  pamphlets  had  already  made  him  a  recog- 
nized authority. 

It  was  thus  an  editorship  of  "all  the  talents"  that  was 
installed  in  the  Evening  Post  just  before  Garfield  was 
shot.  Schurz  was  specially  equipped  to  discuss  politics, 
the  range  of  problems  he  had  met  while  Secretary  of  the 
Interior,  and  German  affairs;  White  was  perhaps  the  best 
writer  available  on  the  tariff,  railways,  silver  question, 
and  banking;  while  Godkin  held  an  unrivaled  pen  for 
general  social  and  political  topics.  By  birth  they  were 
German,  American,  and  British,  but  Schurz  and  Godkin 
were  really  cosmopolites,  citizens  of  the  world.  Their 
practical  experience  had  covered  a  surprising  range.  We 
are  likely  to  forget,  for  example,  that  Schurz  had  once 
made  a  living  by  teaching  German  in  London,  and  had 
farmed  in  Wisconsin,  while  Godkin  had  been  a  war  cor- 
respondent in  the  Crimea,  and  admitted  to  the  New 
York  bar.  In  their  fundamental  idealism  the  three  men 
were  wholly  alike.  Schurz's  political  record  and  God- 
kin's  Nation  were  monuments  to  it.  They  were  one  in 
wishing  to  make  the  Post  the  champion  of  sound  money, 
a  low  tariff,  civil  service  reform,  clean  and  independent 
politics,  and  international  peace.  Henry  Villard  with 
rare  generosity  assumed  financial  responsibility  for  the 
paper,  but  made  the  editors  wholly  independent  by 
placing  it  in  the  hands  of  three  trustees — Ex-Gov. 
Bristow,  Ex-Commissioner  David  A.  Wells,  and  Horace 
White. 

II 

The  selection  of  Schurz  to  be  editor-in-chief  was  more 
than  a  tribute  to  his  station  as  a  public  man.  Of  the 
three,  he  had  the  most  varied  journalistic  experience.    As 


CARL  SCHURZ  445 

a  young  man  In  Germany  he  had  helped  Kinkel  edit  the 
Bonner  Zeitiing.  After  the  Civil  War  he  became  head 
of  the  Washington  Bureau  of  the  New  York  Tribune, 
and  took  an  Instant  liking  both  to  journalism  and  the  men 
engaged  In  it — in  his  reminiscences  he  draws  a  sharp  con- 
trast between  their  high  principles  and  the  low  sense  of 
honor  among  Washington  officeholders.  He  soon 
accepted  the  editorship  of  the  Detroit  Post,  a  new  jour- 
nal, urged  upon  him  by  Senator  Zechariah  Chandler,  and 
in  1867  became  editor  and  part  owner  of  the  St.  Louis 
WestUche  Post,  a  place  desirable  because  It  brought  him 
Into  association  with  Dr.  Emil  Preetorius  and  other  Ger- 
man-Americans of  congenial  views.  When  the  date  of 
his  leaving  the  Secretaryship  of  the  Interior  approached 
in  188 1,  he  had  received  several  offers  of  editorial  posi- 
tions. Rudolph  Blankenburg,  later  Mayor  of  Philadel- 
phia, wrote  that  there  was  crying  need  of  a  good  daily  in 
that  city,  and  that  he  and  other  business  men  would  found 
one  if  Schurz  would  take  charge.  The  statement  was 
published  in  St.  Louis  that  a  new  daily  was  about  to  be 
established  there  under  Schurz.  But  Schurz  himself 
would  have  been  the  last  to  lay  emphasis  upon  his  mere 
practical  experience — he  had  no  taste  for  financial  or 
news  management,  and  it  appears  that  neither  the  Detroit 
Post  nor  JVestUche  Post  was  financially  prosperous  under 
him.  His  qualifications  for  the  chief  editorship  were  of 
a  different  and  much  rarer  kind. 

His  ability  as  a  writer  shows  a  mingling  of  high  merits 
with  a  few  distinct  shortcomings.  Since  his  "Reminis- 
cences" will  live  as  long  as  any  work  of  its  kind  and  time, 
no  less  for  its  style  than  Its  fascinating  story,  since  his 
essay  on  Lincoln  is  an  admitted  classic,  it  is  unnecessary 
to  say  that  he  was  a  master  of  the  pen.  He  has  interest- 
ingly related  how  he  taught  himself  to  write  English  on 
first  coming  to  America.  At  the  start  he  made  It  a  prac- 
tice to  read  his  daily  newspaper  from  beginning  to  end; 
then  he  proceeded  to  English  novels — "The  Vicar  of 
Wakefield,"  Scott,  Dickens,  and  Thackeray;  and  he  fol- 
lowed  them  with   Macaulay's   essays   and   Blackstone's 


446  THE  EVENING  POST 

commentaries,  particularly  admiring  the  terse,  clear  style 
of  the  latter.  Finally  he  read  Shakespeare's  plays,  going 
through  their  enormous  vocabulary  with  the  utmost  con- 
scientiousness. At  the  same  time  he  practiced  turning 
the  Letters  of  Junius,  which  he  thought  brilliant,  into 
German,  and  back  again  into  English.  The  result  was 
that  soon  he  not  merely  wrote,  but  thought  equally  well 
in  English  or  German,  and  much  preferred  English  for 
certain  purposes,  as  public  speaking  and  political  discus- 
sion. Schurz's  speeches  were  among  the  most  eloquent 
delivered  in  his  generation.  One  of  the  oldest  Senators 
said  that  his  address  of  February,  1872,  was  the  best  he 
had  ever  heard  in  the  upper  chamber;  his  Brooklyn  speech 
of  1884  against  Blaine  ranks  with  the  greatest  of  Ameri- 
can campaign  orations;  and  his  utterances  upon  tariff  and 
civil  service  reform  were  read  by  millions. 

Yet  Schurz  fell  just  short  of  being  a  great  editorial 
writer.  He  used  a  battle-axe,  at  once  sharp  and  crush- 
ing, but  he  could  not  vary  It  with  the  play  of  the  rapier, 
as  E.  L.  Godkin  could.  His  directness,  clarity,  and 
force  were  marked,  but  his  writings  were  lacking  in 
humor,  metaphor,  and  allusion.  Devoting  himself  to 
large  political  questions,  he  had  no  time  to  observe  in- 
teresting minor  social  phenomena,  so  that  his  work  lacked* 
relief.  No  one  could  excel  him  in  argument  or  exposition 
upon  subjects  with  which  he  was  familiar,  but  he  could 
not  relieve  his  discussions  from  a  reproach  of  dryness. 

Of  the  mind  and  character  behind  the  pen,  almost 
nothing  can  be  said  except  in  praise.  All  his  life  he  had 
been  a  zealot  for  liberalism.  He  had  thrown  himself 
into  the  revolutionary  movement  of  '48  with  an  ardor 
not  a  whit  boyish,  on  coming  to  America  he  had  Instantly 
enlisted  against  slavery,  and  he  was  still  an  enthusiast 
for  reform.  Grover  Cleveland  once  spoke  of  his  career 
as  teaching  "the  lesson  of  moral  courage,  of  intelligent 
and  conscientious  patriotism,  of  independent  political 
thought,  of  unselfish  political  affiliation,  and  of  constant 
political  vigilance."  He  was  for  sound  money  from 
greenback  days  to  the  settlement  of  the  free  silver  Issue; 


CARL  SCHURZ  447 

he  was  a  combatant  against  "imperialism"  from  Grant's 
attempted  annexation  of  Domingo  to  Roosevelt's  seizure 
of  Panama.  When  Secretary  of  the  Interior  he  enforced 
the  merit  system,  yet  unembodled  In  any  law,  in 
his  department,  requiring  competitive  examinations  for 
clerkships.  His  one  fault  was  that  In  his  intentness  on 
his  own  subject  he  sometimes  lost  perspective,  and  be- 
came indifferent  to  equally  important  aims  of  others. 

It  has  been  said  that  as  Lord  Halifax  made  the  term 
"trimmer"  honorable  In  England,  Schurz  made  that  of 
party  turncoat  honorable  in  America.  His  obedience  to 
principle  was  so  unswerving  that  he  was  heedless  of 
allegiance  to  groups  or  individuals.  He  was  for  Seward 
In  i860,  but  fell  in  Instantly  behind  Lincoln;  supported 
President  Johnson's  reconstruction  policy  till  his  trip 
South  In  1865,  and  then  followed  Sumner;  was  for  Grant 
in  1869,  and  one  of  the  earliest  leaders  against  him  in 
1870-71;  warmly  commended  some  of  Roosevelt's  acts 
and  condemned  more;  was  one  of  Bryan's  sternest  oppo- 
nents in  1896,  and  made  a  speaking  tour  for  him  in  1900. 
The  independence  exhibited  in  this  adherence  to  convic- 
tion was  In  the  highest  degree  creditable.  His  sense  of 
personal  rectitude  was  so  keen  and  sensitive  that  he  could 
not  bear  to  do  anything  for  mere  "expediency."  It  can 
only  be  said  that  he  was  sometimes  a  little  too  positive 
that  he  was  right,  a  little  Intolerant  of  others.  His 
indignation  when  Roosevelt  and  Lodge  in  1884  followed 
Blaine,  whom  they  suspected  of  being  dishonest,  would 
have  been  less  intense  had  he  seen  that  there  Is  really 
something  to  be  said  for  party  regularity  under  such 
circumstances. 

Yet  he  was  no  impracticable  Idealist,  but  a  man  with  a 
shrewd  grasp  of  affairs.  Mark  Twain  declared  that  he 
made  it  a  rule,  when  in  doubt  In  politics,  to  follow 
Schurz,  saying  to  himself,  "He's  as  safe  as  Ben  Thorn- 
burgh" — a  famous  Mississippi  pilot.  When  his  collected 
papers  were  published,  they  showed  that  throughout  his 
long  life  he  had  possessed  remarkable  prescience.  He 
wrote  Kinkel  in   1856  that  Buchanan's  Administration 


448  THE  EVENING  POST 

would  end  the  old  Democratic  party,  that  the  contest 
with  slavery  would  not  be  settled  without  powder,  and 
that  the  North  would  win.  In  1858  he  predicted  that 
there  would  be  a  war,  and  that  he  would  fight  in  it.  In 
1864  he  ventured  to  assert,  before  the  election,  that  "In 
fifty  years,  perhaps  much  sooner,  Lincoln's  name  will  be 
inscribed  close  to  Washington's  on  this  American  repub- 
lic's roll  of  honor.  And  there  it  will  remain  for  all  time." 
No  one  saw  farther  into  the  reconstruction  question  than 
he.  Much  of  what  we  now  call  conservation,  especially 
of  forests,  dates  from  Schurz's  far-sighted  pioneer  work 
as  Secretary  of  the  Interior. 

Humor  is  almost  indispensable  to  an  editor,  and  Schurz 
had  little  of  it,  but  in  compensation  he  was  sustained  by 
a  better  trait.  Every  one  perceived  the  gallant  quality  of 
the  man,  but  his  intimates  alone  understood  what  a  deep 
poetic  vein  fed  it.  Howells  says  that  at  first  he  was  a 
little  awed  by  the  revolutionist,  general,  statesman,  and 
editor.  "But  underneath  them  all,  and  in  his  heart  of 
hearts,  I  was  always  divining  him  poet.  He  had  lived  one 
of  the  greatest  and  most  beautiful  romances,  and  you 
could  not  be  in  his  presence  without  knowing  it,  unless 
you  were  particularly  blind  and  deaf.  It  kindled  in  his 
eyes;  it  trembled  in  his  clear,  keen,  yet  gentle  voice;  it 
shone  in  his  smile;  it  sounded  in  his  laugh,  which  his 
youth  never  died  out  of."  No  more  unselfish  man  ever 
moved  actively  in  American  affairs.  A  sentence  from  a 
letter  to  Kinkel  strikes  the  keynote  to  his  life :  "To  have 
aims  that  lie  outside  ourselves  and  our  immediate  circle 
is  a  great  thing,  and  well  worth  the  sacrifice." 

Schurz,  Godkin,  and  White  made  only  two  important 
changes  in  the  form  of  the  Post,  both  dictated  by  its 
union  with  the  Nation.  It  was  still,  like  the  Sun  of  that 
time,  like  several  great  Paris  dailies  to-day,  a  four-page 
sheet;  except  that  on  Saturday  Parke  Godwin  had  insti- 
tuted a  two-page  supplement,  containing  book  notices, 
essays,  fictional  sketches,  and  other  miscellaneous  matter. 
This  was  now  utilized  for  the  book  reviews  written  by  the 
Nation's  unrivaled  staff  of  contributors — Lowell,  Bryce, 


CARL  SCHURZ  449 

Parkman,  W.  C.  Brownell,  Henry  Adams,  John  Fiske, 
Charles  Eliot  Norton,  and  a  long  list  of  experts  in  every 
field.  The  space  thus  afforded  was  inadequate,  and  it 
became  necessary  to  print  many  reviews  during  the  week 
opposite  the  editorials,  so  that  the  Post  acquired  a  much 
more  literary  flavor.  Under  Bryant  and  Godwin  edi- 
torials had  been  variable  in  length,  and  nearly  all  headed. 
Now  they  were  standardized  into  two  forms ;  long  headed 
articles,  of  800  to  1,200  words  each,  of  which  two  or  three 
were  printed  daily,  and  seven  to  ten  paragraphs  of  100- 
250  words  each,  without  captions.  The  brevier  type 
was  sometimes  lifted  direct  into  the  forms  of  the  Nation. 

In  the  office  Schurz  was  called  "the  General."  His 
subordinates  found  him  genial,  kindly,  and  appreciative, 
though  his  manner  had  a  touch  of  military  strictness.  He 
left  the  news,  financial,  literary,  and  dramatic  depart- 
ments almost  wholly  to  their  various  heads,  but  bent  a 
watchful  eye  upon  the  musical  criticism — he  was  an  ex- 
pert musician.  Against  only  one  change  in  the  paper's 
discipline  were  there  any  protests.  W.  P.  Garrison,  the 
son  of  the  great  Abolitionist,  hastened  to  abolish  the 
"filthy  habit"  of  smoking  in  the  oflices,  a  rule  that  caused 
incalculable  anguish  among  some  of  the  veteran  news- 
paper men;  it  is  said  that  George  Cary  Eggleston's  early 
resignation  was  partly  due  to  it.  Schurz  probably  con- 
sented on  the  ground  of  the  fire-hazard. 

A  few  stories  have  come  down  showing  "the  General" 
as  he  worked,  his  tall  form  bent  short-sightedly  over  his 
pad  in  a  little  space  that  he  would  grub  out  from  the 
accumulated  chaos  of  papers  and  letters  on  his  desk.  The 
famous  Sullivan-Ryan  prize-fight  occurred  in  February, 
1882,  and  when  the  first  dispatches  arrived,  Linn,  the 
news-editor,  hurried  to  consult  Schurz,  telling  him  that 
under  Bryant  the  Post  had  always  thrown  such  news  into 
the  waste-basket.  This  was  the  fact:  when  the  McCool- 
Jones  fight  occurred  in  1867,  the  paper  had  suppressed 
a  column  from  the  Associated  Press,  and  mentioned  the 
"revolting"  affair  only  in  a  short,  tart  editorial.  But 
Schurz  eagerly  read  the  dispatches.     "Mr,  Linn,"  he 


450  THE  EVENING  POST 

ordered,  "publish  a  brief  result  of  each  round,  and  head 
it,  'Brutal  Prize-Fight';  and,"  he  added  with  a  twinkle, 
"let  me  see  a  copy  on  each  round  as  soon  as  it  comes  in." 
Linn  commented  on  returning  to  his  desk,  "The  General 
is  an  old  fighter  himself."  This,  however,  was  an  un- 
usual display  of  humor  on  Schurz's  part.  There  existed 
from  the  Civil  War  until  1918  a  daily  feature  on  the  edi- 
torial page  called  "Newspaper  Waifs,"  consisting  of  sev- 
eral sticksful  of  jokes  clipped  from  various  sources.  It 
was  always  popular;  in  1894,  after  Godkin's  denuncia- 
tion of  his  Venezuela  message,  Cleveland  was  asked 
whether  he  still  read  the  Evening  Post,  and  replied,  "Yes 
— I  read  the  waifs."  Schurz  insisted  on  seeing  the  copy 
for  the  feature;  and,  to  keep  it  alive,  the  managing  editor 
found  it  necessary  to  include  daily  a  half  dozen  poor  and 
obvious  jokes  with  the  good  ones.  With  unerring  eye, 
glancing  down  the  column,  Schurz  would  o.k.  the  poor 
quips  and  cancel  most  of  the  others. 

The  majority  of  Schurz's  editorials  naturally  dealt  with 
party  politics  and  the  affairs  of  the  Federal  Government. 
The  assassination  of  Garfield  (July  2,  1881)  and  the 
succession  of  Arthur  to  the  Presidency,  awakened  much 
apprehension  among  editors  of  liberal  views,  which  the 
Evening  Post  shared.  For  some  time  it  found  President 
Arthur's  conduct  reassuring,  but  it  soon  had  occasion  to 
condemn  a  number  of  his  appointments — notably  his  nom- 
ination of  Roscoe  Conkling  to  the  Supreme  Bench,  which 
Conkling  declined,  and  his  selection  of  Wm.  E.  Chandler 
to  be  Secretary  of  the  Navy — as  evidence  that  he  was 
introducing  the  methods  of  the  New  York  machine  into 
national  politics.  Garfield's  death  made  the  question  of 
the  Presidency  in  1884  important,  and  during  1883  the 
Post  uttered  frequent  monitions  that  the  nomination  of 
Blaine  would  disrupt  the  Republican  party  and  lead  to 
defeat.  A  characteristic  utterance  by  Schurz  in  July, 
1883,  contained  some  shrewd  observations  on  party  char- 
acter as  it  appeared  just  a  year  before  the  campaign.  The 
essential  difference  between  the  Democrats  and  Repub- 
licans, he  wrote,  was  that  the  former  had  sterling  leaders 


CARL  SCHURZ  45 1 

but  a  wrongheaded  rank  and  file,  while  the  latter  had 
many  pernicious  leaders  but  a  sound  general  body.  Men 
like  Cleveland,  Bayard,  Vilas,  and  Hewitt  believed  in 
civil  service  reform  and  hard  money,  while  men  like 
Blaine,  Conkling,  Arthur,  and  Wm.  Walter  Phelps  be- 
lieved in  spoils  and  a  high  tariff;  but  the  great  mass  of 
Democrats  would  try  to  drag  the  leaders  down  to  their 
own  level,  while  the  mass  of  Republicans — so  Schurz 
hoped — would  turn  their  backs  on  Blaine  and  Arthur. 

Early  in  1883,  when  the  question  of  Federal  aid  to  the 
common  schools  was  raised,  an  issue  still  important, 
Schurz  wrote  disapproving  it,  as  an  interference  with  the 
functions  and  self-reliance  of  the  States.  He  had  the 
[gratification  of  hailing  the  Pendleton  Civil  Service  Act, 
the  first  great  step  toward  fulfillment  of  a  reform  on 
which  he  somehow  found  time  to  lecture  as  well  as  write. 
He  defended  the  Chinese  against  unfair  legislation  in 
California,  and  argued  constantly  for  a  fairer  policy 
toward  the  Indians.  Perhaps  his  most  important  edi- 
torials were  several  in  the  latter  half  of  1882  arguing 
for  an  executive  budget,  beyond  doubt  the  first  elaborate 
demand  for  this  reform  made  by  any  American  editor. 
He  wrote  (August,  1882)  : 

It  is  obvious  how  much  in  the  way  of  bringing  order  out  of  chaos 
would  be  accomplished  by  introducing  the  practice  of  having  a 
complete  budget  of  necessary  expenditures,  and  of  the  taxation 
required  to  cover  them,  prepared  by  the  executive  branch  of  the 
government,  and  submitted  to  Congress  at  the  beginning  of  each 
session.  What  we  have  now  is  merely  the  estimates  of  the  dif- 
ferent departments  of  the  amounts  of  money  they  want.  What 
is  needed  is,  aside  from  the  grouping  together  of  these  amounts, 
showing  the  total  sum  required  by  the  government  for  the  year, 
a  clear  statement  of  the  different  kinds  of  existing  taxes,  with  their 
yield,  and  the  opinion  of  the  Executive  as  to  what  taxes  will  best 
subserve  the  purpose,  what  taxes  may  be  cut  down  or  abolished, 
and  so  on.  A  clear  summing  up  in  a  statement  of  this  kind  would 
be  sure  to  attract  the  attention  and  to  reach  the  understanding  of 
every  intelligent  taxpayer.  .  .  , 

By  far  the  most  interesting  of  Schurz's  editorials,  how- 


452  THE  EVENING  POST 

ever,  were  a  number  upon  foreign  topics.  He  wrote  re- 
peatedly upon  the  affairs  of  Germany,  where  Bismarck, 
given  a  free  hand  by  the  fast  aging  William  I,  was  as- 
serting the  absolute  power  of  the  throne,  passing  antl- 
Soclallst  legislation,  and  otherwise  taking  a  reactionary 
course  which  Schurz  lost  no  opportunity  to  denounce. 
The  editor  pinned  his  hope  of  a  better  policy  to  the  Crown 
Prince,  the  short-lived  and  noble-minded  Emperor  Fred- 
erick. From  time  to  time  Schurz  would  select  news  from 
the  European  press  and  illuminate  it  with  his  special 
knowledge.  Thus  In  the  summer  of  1883,  under  the  title 
"A  Strange  Story,"  he  wrote  upon  the  trial  of  the  Jews 
of  a  Hungarian  hamlet  on  the  charge  of  sacrificial 
murder;  the  editorial  was  pure  narrative,  but  its  effect 
was  a  caustic  denunciation  of  religious  bigotry.  When  in 
the  fall  of  1882  Gottfried  Kinkel  died,  Schurz  character- 
ized his  old  German  comrade  as  the  incarnation  of  the 
vague,  impractical  idealism  of  1848,  an  idealism  that 
recked  nothing  of  hard  political  realities;  and  his  editorial 
contained  a  striking  bit  of  reminiscence : 

It  was  this  spirit  which  seized  upon  Kinkel,  who  was  then  a 
professor  extraordinary  at  the  University  of  Bonn,  lecturing  on 
the  history  of  art  and  literature.  He  was  a  poet  of  note;  of  an 
artistic  nature,  also,  ardent  and  impatient  of  restraint.  He  was 
an  orator  of  wonderful  fertility  of  imagination  and  power  of 
expression.  .  .  ,  He  preached  advanced  democratic  ideas,  and 
his  political  programme  fairly  represented  the  romantic  indefinite- 
ness  of  the  whole  revolutionary  movement.  When  the  reaction 
came,  he  left  his  professorship,  his  wife  and  children,  and,  gun  in 
hand,  fought  as  a  private  soldier  in  the  insurrectionary  army  of 
Baden.  In  one  of  the  engagements  he  was  wounded  and  taken, 
and  then  sentenced  to  imprisonment  for  life,  put  into  a  peniten- 
tiary, clothed  in  a  convict's  garb,  and  forced  to  spin  wool — the 
mere  thought  of  which  touched  every  heart  in  Germany.  Then 
he  was  brought  from  the  penitentiary  to  be  tried  at  Cologne  for 
an  attempt  upon  an  arsenal,  in  which  he  had  taken  part — an 
offense  not  covered  by  the  sentence  already  passed  upon  him.  The 
court  was  thronged  with  spectators  and  with  soldiers.  He  de- 
fended himself.  Before  he  had  closed  his  speech,  which  was  like  a 
poem,  the  judge,  the  jury,  the  spectators,  the  soldiers,  the  very 


CARL  SCHURZ  453 

gendarmes  by  his  side,  were  melting  in  tears.  His  wife  stood 
outside  the  bar,  forbidden  to  approach  him;  but  when  in  the 
agony  of  grief  he  called  out  to  her  to  come  to  him,  the  soldiers 
involuntarily  stepped  aside  to  let  her  rush  into  his  arms.  It  was 
as  if  all  Germany  had  looked  on  and  wept  with  those  who  were 
in  the  courtroom.  Then  he  was  taken  back  to  the  penitentiary 
and  set  to  wool-spinning  again,  until  in  November,  1850,  some 
friends  aided  him  in  escaping.  Again  the  popular  heart  was 
stirred  in  its  poetic  sympathies.  His  whole  public  career  was 
like  the  most  romantic  episode  of  a  romantic  time — a  fair  repre- 
sentative of  the  spirit  of  these  days,  their  heroic  devotion  to  an 
ideal,  and  their  indefiniteness  of  aim. 

Some  striking  editorials  by  Schurz  and  Godkin,  de- 
nouncing the  vicious  operations  of  Jay  Gould  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Manhattan  Elevated  Railroad,  had  a  dra- 
matic sequel.  Gould  and  his  associates,  enraged  by  them, 
determined  to  retaliate  by  a  personal  attack  upon  Schurz. 
In  pursuance  of  this  purpose,  they  concocted  an  ingenious 
double-barreled  slander,  aimed  both  at  Schurz  and  Henry 
Villard.  In  substance,  It  was  that  as  Secretary  of  the 
Interior  Gen.  Schurz  had  prostituted  his  rulings  to  the 
advancement  of  Villard's  railway  interests,  and  had  been 
given  his  shares  in  the  Evening  Post  as  a  reward.  Not 
only  was  this  piece  of  mendacity  worked  up  In  detail  In 
the  World,  which  Jay  Gould  controlled,  but  it  found  Its 
way  Into  an  article  by  George  W.  Julian  In  the  North 
American  Review  for  March,  1883.  Schurz  had  a  short 
way  with  the  authors  of  malicious  fabrications.  During 
the  Civil  War  Gen.  Leslie  Combs  had  charged  him  with 
cowardice  at  Chancellorsville,  and  he  had  instantly  called 
Combs  a  liar  and  challenged  him  to  a  test  of  courage  in 
the  next  battle.  Now  he  blew  Julian  to  pieces  In  the 
Evening  Post  of  the  week  of  March  26.  The  facts  were 
that  the  "restoration"  to  the  Northern  Pacific  of  a  for- 
feited land  grant,  the  offense  charged  against  Schurz, 
had  been  made  in  accordance  with  a  ruling  by  the  At- 
torney-General and  not  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior; 
that  It  was  based  upon  principles  applied  in  the  same  way 
to  many  other  cases;    that  Henry  Villard  did  not  for 


454  THE  EVENING  POST 

nearly  two  years  afterward  have  any  Interest  In  the 
Northern  Pacific;  and  that,  on  the  contrary,  he  was  In- 
terested in  a  rival  enterprise.  It  is  unnecessary  to  say 
that  those  who  had  beheved  this  story  in  the  first  place 
were  few  and  simple-minded. 

Of  the  breadth  of  Schurz's  influence  there  are  many 
evidences.  A  few  days  after  he  took  the  editorial  chair 
ex-President  Hayes  declared  to  him:  "I  must  see  what 
you  write.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Hayes  will  not  forgive  me  If  she 
loses  anything  you  write."  The  files  of  his  correspond- 
ence, kept  in  the  Congressional  Library,  indicate  that  a 
majority  of  Congress  subscribed  to  the  daily  or  semi- 
weekly  Evening  Post.  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
was  glad  to  supply  seven  pages  of  information  in  his  own 
handwriting  upon  a  question  of  the  day;  and  information 
for  news  or  editorial  use  was  volunteered  to  Schurz  by  a 
considerable  list  of  consuls  abroad.  It  was  at  this  time 
that  a  young  Atlanta  lawyer  named  Woodrow  Wilson 
contributed  a  series  of  articles  upon  conditions  at  the 
South — "entirely  off  my  own  bat,"  writes  ex-President 
Wilson.  The  Post  was  read  by  German-Americans  all 
over  the  country,  and  many  of  Its  editorials  were  re- 
printed by  German-language  journals.  That  Schurz  felt 
this  nation-wide  Interest  as  a  constant  stimulus  there  can 
be  no  doubt.  Always  a  hard  worker,  he  gave  his  best 
energies  to  the  newspaper  in  spite  of  constant  demands 
for  public  addresses  and  magazine  articles;  he  wrote  In 
1 88 1  that  he  was  at  his  desk  daily  from  nine  to  four- 
thirty,  and  in  1883,  when  the  editor  of  the  American 
Statesmen  Series  requested  him  to  finish  his  volumes  on 
Henry  Clay  as  soon  as  possible,  he  replied  that  his  duties 
allowed  him  only  parts  of  two  or  three  evenings  a  week. 

From  the  outset  many  friends  of  the  Post  had  predicted 
that  an  editorship  of  "all  the  talents"  would  work  no 
better  than  had  the  ministry  of  that  character  In  Eng- 
land; and  the  prediction  was  soon  verified.  As  Isaac  H. 
Bromley,  a  humorist  on  the  Tribune  said — a  witticism 
which  Godkin  sometimes  repeated  with  enjoyment — 
"there    were    too    many   mules    in    the    same    pasture." 


CARL  SCHURZ  455 

Schurz  and  Godkin  had  greatly  admired  each  other  before 
they  were  associated,  and  were  entirely  congenial  in  their 
rather  aristocratic  intellectualism  and  their  views  on 
political  subjects;  but  their  methods  of  appealing  to  the 
public  were  not  merely  different,  but  disparate.  Schurz 
employed  argument  and  calm  exposition,  while  Godkin 
varied  his  argument  with  ridicule,  cutting  irony,  and  even 
denunciation.  There  is  no  doubt  that  before  long  God- 
kin came  to  feel  that  Schurz's  editorials  were  too  narrow 
in  range,  and  too  arid  in  the  mode  of  presentation.  On 
the  other  hand,  Schurz  did  not  always  approve  of  God- 
kin's  ironic  humor,  and  thought  that  he  was  sometimes 
too  savagely  cutting  in  tone.  Neither  was  satisfied  with 
the  editorial  page.  Indeed,  Godkin's  dissatisfaction  in 
the  late  spring  of  1883  became  so  acute  that  he  concluded 
that  the  Evening  Post  experiment  was  a  failure,  that  the 
first  impetus  of  the  change  had  been  lost,  and  that  heroic 
measures  were  necessary  to  raise  the  level  of  the  news- 
paper. He  differed  greatly  from  Schurz,  he  explained, 
as  to  the  quality  of  the  editorial  writing,  and  wished  to 
dismiss  one  staff  member,  Robert  Burch,  and  employ  in 
his  stead  some  one  especially  good  at  writing  pungent 
paragraphs.  The  result  was  an  arrangement  between 
Godkin  and  Schurz  by  which  the  latter  agreed  to  relin- 
quish the  editorship-in-chief  on  Aug.  i,  when  he  went  on 
his  summer  vacation;  with  the  understanding  that  if, 
after  another  two  years,  the  dissatisfaction  continued, 
Horace  White  should  take  Godkin's  place  at  the  helm. 
Schurz  duly  left  for  his  vacation,  Burch  was  dismissed, 
and  Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop,  a  brilliant  young  editorial 
writer  for  the  Tribune,  was  brought  on  in  his  stead. 

At  this  juncture  there  occurred  an  event  which  brought 
Schurz  and  Godkin  into  abrupt  conflict  over  a  question 
not  merely  of  the  manner  and  quality  of  the  Post's  edi- 
torials, but  of  its  views.  Schurz  had  always  been  much 
more  sympathetic  with  the  laboring  masses  than  Godkin, 
and  in  a  time  of  many  labor  troubles  their  opinions  were 
bound  to  clash.  Late  in  July,  1883,  commenced  a  strike 
of  the  railway  telegraphers,  which  at  first  threatened  a 


456  THE  EVENING  POST 

widespread  Interruption  of  communications  and  trans- 
portation. Schurz's  utterances  were  impartial,  but  he  had 
no  sooner  left  than  Godkin,  as  he  had  a  right  to  do,  gave 
the  Post  a  tone  hostile  to  the  strikers.  His  view  was 
that  In  an  Industry  so  vitally  connected  with  the  public's 
Interests,  a  sudden  crippling  cessation  of  work  was  not 
allowable;  that  a  national  tribunal  should  be  set  up  to 
decide  such  controversies,  and  that  when  the  decision  was 
once  rendered,  "general  strikes  In  defiance  or  evasion  of 
It  should  be  punishable  in  some  manner."  For  this  judg- 
ment much  can  be  said,  though  it  is  certainly  not  one  that 
the  Evening  Post  to-day  would  defend. 

On  Aug.  8  Godkin  made  the  Post  declare  that  "the 
30,000  or  40,000  men  whom  some  of  our  modern  corpora- 
tions employ  in  telegraphic  or  railroad  service  have  to  be 
governed  on  the  same  principles  as  an  army."  This  was 
more  than  Schurz  could  bear,  and  he  no  sooner  read  the 
editorial,  at  his  summer  hotel  In  the  Catskills,  than  he 
seized  a  pen  and  wrote  Godkin  denying  that  any  man  has 
to  be  "governed"  on  army  principles  save  those  who  vol- 
untarily enlist.  "The  relations  between  those  who  sell 
their  labor  by  the  day  and  their  employers,  whether  the 
latter  be  great  corporations  or  single  individuals,  are 
simple  contract  relations,  and  it  seems  to  me  monstrous 
to  hold  that  the  act  of  one  or  more  laboring  men  ending 
that  contract  by  stopping  their  work  is,  or  should  be, 
considered  and  treated  in  any  case  as  desertion  from  the 
army  Is  considered  and  treated."  He  added  that  he 
thought  Godkin's  editorial  one  which  would  do  the  Eve- 
ning Post  essential  harm,  and  cause  it  to  be  regarded  as 
a  corporation  organ.  He  would  publicly  disclaim  any 
share  in  the  responsibility  for  it  did  he  not  abhor  the  sen- 
sationalism of  such  a  step.  Godkin  and  Schurz  were 
equally  positive  and  tenacious  of  any  opinion  once  fully 
assumed,  and  there  was  no  Issue  from  their  disagreement 
except  the  resignation  of  one  of  them.  That  of  Schurz 
was  formally  announced  during  the  autumn.  It  Is  a  grat- 
ifying fact  that  whatever  temporary  ill-feeling  subsisted 
between  them  almost  immediately  disappeared,  and  was 


CARL  SCHURZ  457 

replaced  by  their  former  mutual  high  esteem.  Within  a 
few  weeks  after  his  departure  Schurz  contributed  an  edi- 
torial to  the  Evening  Post  upon  Edward  Lasker,  the 
German  liberal,  and  throughout  the  campaign  of  1884 
Godkin's  references  to  Schurz  were  warmly  cordial. 

The  regret  of  the  Evening  Post's  friends  over  Schurz's 
resignation  was  tempered  by  their  sense  that  a  disruption 
of  the  original  arrangement  was  inevitable.  Every  news- 
paper has  to  have  a  single  ultimate  arbiter  of  its  policy. 
The  only  exceptions  to  this  rule  are  those  journals  which 
take  no  real  interest  in  maintaining  a  thoughtful,  useful 
policy.  With  neither  Schurz  nor  Godkin  willing  to  accept 
a  subordinate  position,  with  their  distinct  differences  of 
temperament,  the  wonder  is  that  they  worked  so  smoothly 
for  two  full  years. 


CHAPTER  TWENTY-ONE 

GODKIN,  THE  MUGWUMP  MOVEMENT,  AND  GROVER  CLEVE- 
LAND'S CAREER 

Edv^in  Lawrence  Godkin  was  not  quite  fifty-two 
when  he  became  editor-in-chief  in  1883,  and  was  in  the 
prime  of  life,  with  fifteen  years  of  vigorous  journalistic 
labor  before  him.  He  wrote  Charles  Eliot  Norton  that 
he  had  no  intention,  even  if  his  health  permitted,  of  stay- 
ing with  the  Evening  Post  more  than  ten  years,  but  his 
heart  was  enlisted  far  too  keenly  in  his  work  and  the 
great  causes  he  espoused  to  let  him  go  until  failing  health 
made  his  retirement  in  1899  imperative.  It  is  natural 
that  his  published  letters  should  emphasize  his  joyous 
sense  of  a  greater  freedom  as  he  entered  the  newspaper 
office;  his  feeling  that  he  was  giving  himself  to  a  publica- 
tion which  did  not  depend  absolutely  upon  his  pen  and 
mind  as  the  Nation  did,  and  could  have  his  vacations  like 
other  workers.  But  he  felt  also  his  new  responsibilities. 
He  valued  the  opportunity  the  Post  gave  him  to  impress 
his  opinions  daily  upon  the  public;  to  reach  a  wider  audi- 
ence— the  Post's  20,000  buyers  as  well  as  the  Nation's 
10,000;  and  to  give  more  attention  to  certain  subjects, 
as  municipal  misgovernment.  "My  notion  is,  you  know," 
he  wrote  W.  P.  Garrison  in  1883,  "that  the  Evening  Post 
ought  to  make  a  specialty  of  being  the  paper  to  which 
sober-minded  people  would  look  at  crises  of  this  kind, 
instead  of  hollering  and  bellering  and  shouting  platitudes 
like  the  Herald  and  Times.'' 

The  independent  character  of  the  political  course  God- 
kin  would  steer  had  been  fully  indicated  by  the  volumes 
of  the  Nation.  This  weekly,  founded  when  the  last  shots 
of  the  Civil  War  were  ringing  in  men's  ears,  had  under- 
taken the  fearless  discussion  of  public  questions  at  a 
moment  that  seemed  peculiarly  unpropitious.     The  prev- 

458 


MUGWUMP  MOVEMENT  459 

alent  tendency  of  the  years  after  the  war,  as  Godkln 
said,  was  a  fierce  ilHberalism,  represented  by  such  leaders 
as  Thaddeus  Stevens  in  the  House.  The  Nation  had  at 
once  declared  war  upon  this  narrow,  rancorous  political 
spirit,  and  attempted  to  substitute  progressive  and  en- 
lightened views.  It  had  questioned  the  wisdom  of  the 
impeachment  of  Andrew  Johnson.  It  had  been  ten  years 
in  advance  of  public  opinion  in  its  attacks  upon  that 
demagogic  politician,  Ben  Butler.  It  had  been  one  of  the 
first  Republican  organs  to  denounce  the  carpet-bag  regime 
at  the  South,  and  to  assail  President  Grant  for  his  fail- 
ures. In  1876  occurred  its  most  serious  collision  with  a 
considerable  body  of  readers;  it  condemned  the  Southern 
frauds  which  gave  Hayes  the  Presidency,  and  called  his 
induction  into  office  a  "most  deplorable  and  debauching 
enterprise,"  this  course  costing  it  3,000  subscribers.  God- 
kin  Inclined  In  his  sympathies  to  the  Republican  party, 
but  he  would  not  hesitate  to  break  from  it  upon  any 
question  of  principle. 

When  Godkln  assumed  the  helm  of  the  Evening  Post, 
he  had  a  shrewd  suspicion  that  the  Presidential  campaign 
about  to  open  would  present  a  fundamental  question  of 
principle.  As  he  wrote  long  after,  James  G.  Blaine's 
audacity,  good  humor,  horror  of  rebel  brigadiers,  and 
contempt  for  reformers  made  his  nomination  sooner  or 
later  inevitable,  and  such  a  nomination  In  Godkin's  eyes 
presented  a  moral  question  of  the  first  magnitude.  No 
American  newspaper  has  ever  conducted  a  more  effective 
campaign  fight  than  that  which  the  Evening  Post  waged 
in  1884.  It  was  a  fight  not  only  against  Blaine,  but  In 
behalf  of  the  one  contemporary  American  statesman 
whom  Godkln,  In  his  long  journalistic  career  after  1865, 
highly  admired. 

Of  reformers  like  Godkln,  Blaine  wrote  in  advance  of 
his  nomination:  "They  are  noisy,  but  not  numerous; 
Pharisaical,  but  not  practical;  ambitious,  but  not  wise; 
pretentious,  but  not  powerful."  The  Evening  Post's 
opinion  of  Blaine  was  equally  frank.  It  believed  that  the 
Mulligan  letters,  published  in  1876,  convicted  Blaine  of 


46o  THE  EVENING  POST 

prostituting  his  office  as  a  member  of  Congress  and 
Speaker  in  order  to  make  money  in  various  Western  rail- 
ways, and  of  lying  in  a  vain  effort  to  conceal  the  fact.  It 
added  as  lesser  counts  against  him  that  in  his  twelve 
years  in  the  House  he  had  never  performed  a  single  serv- 
ice for  good  government,  and  had  done  it  much  disservice, 
as  by  his  covert  opposition  to  civil  service  reform,  and 
his  defense  of  the  spoliation  of  the  public  lands;  that  in 
all  his  public  appearances  he  had  been  sensational, 
theatrical,  and  a  lover  of  notoriety;  and  that  while  Secre- 
tary of  State  under  Garfield  "he  plunged  into  spoils,  and 
wallowed  in  them  for  three  months,  like  a  rhinoceros  in 
an  African  pool,  using  every  office  he  could  lay  his  hands 
on  for  the  reward  of  his  henchmen  and  hangers-on,  with- 
out shame  or  scruple."  But  its  central  objection  was 
always  that  he  had  sold  his  official  power  and  influence. 

The  great  "Mugwump"  bolt  from  the  Republican 
party  as  soon  as  Blaine  was  nominated  took  with  it  many 
influential  Eastern  journals — Harpe/s  Weekly,  the  New 
York  Times,  the  Boston  Herald,  the  Boston  Advertiser, 
and  the  Springfield  Republican — but  it  took  no  other  pen 
like  Godkin's.  Long  in  advance  of  the  convention,  he 
and  Schurz  had  warned  the  Republican  leaders  that 
Blaine's  nomination  would  disrupt  the  party.  The  Eve- 
ning Post  pointed  out  in  November,  1883,  that  the  next 
election  would  probably  be  close,  and  that  New  York, 
where  the  voters  were  more  independent  than  anywhere 
else,  would  certainly  be  the  pivotal  State.  The  election 
of  1876  had  hung  upon  several  artificial  decisions  in  the 
South;  that  of  1884  would  be  likely  to  hang  upon  the 
judgment  of  a  small  body  of  thoughtful,  impartial  voters. 
On  April  23,  1884,  a  rich  New  Jersey  Congressman 
named  William  Walter  Phelps  published  an  article  de- 
fending Blaine,  to  which  Godkin  immediately  replied  in  a 
long  and  elaborate  review  of  "Mr.  Blaine's  Railroad 
Transactions."  Thereafter  the  paper  kept  up  a  drum- 
fire upon  the  "tattooed  man." 

How  could  the  campaign  be  most  effectively  conducted? 
Godkin  saw  that  of  the  arsenal  of  weapons  available, 


MUGWUMP  MOVEMENT 


461 


the  parallel  column  could  be  used  with  the  most  telling 
force.  The  attack,  in  the  first  place,  must  be  focussed 
upon  the  Republican  candidate.  No  one  cared  about  the 
rival  platforms.  As  for  the  general  character  of  the  two 
parties,  most  voters  believed  the  Republican  party  to  be 
superior,  and  Godkin  himself  would  have  thought  so  had 
not  its  jobbing,  corrupt  element,  as  he  said,  gradually 
"come  to  a  head,  in  the  fashion  of  a  tumor,  in  Mr.  James 
G.  Blaine."  How  could  Blaine's  weaknesses  be  most 
clearly  exposed?  By  his  own  letters,  made  public  through 
Mulligan,  which  stripped  his  dealings  as  a  Congress- 
man with  the  Little  Rock  &  Fort  Smith,  the  Union 
Pacific,  and  the  Northern  Pacific  interests,  and  by  his 
own  speeches  defending  these  transactions.  Adroit 
though  he  was,  Blaine  in  his  panicky  efforts  at  self-justi- 
fication had  repeatedly  contradicted  both  himself  and  the 
admitted  facts.  This,  with  all  its  implications,  could  be 
concisely  proved  by  the  parallel  columns. 

Not  all  these  contradictions  were  immediately  evident. 
By  the  end  of  September,  just  after  Mulligan  had  pub- 
lished a  new  group  of  Blaine  letters,  Godkin  and  his  asso- 
ciates, Horace  White,  Joseph  Bucklin  Bishop,  and  A.  G. 
Sedgwick,  had  detected  a  half  dozen.  By  November 
they  had  raised  the  total  to  ten.  Reprinted  day  after  day, 
they  had  a  value  that  will  be  evident  from  a  couple  of 
examples : 


BLAINE  LIE   NO.   5 


"My  whole  connection  with  the  road 
has  been  open  as  the  day.  If  there  had 
been  anything  to  conceal  about  it,  I 
should  never  have  touched  it.  Wherever 
concealment  is  advisable,  avoidance  is  ad- 
visable, and  1  do  not  know  any  better  test 
to  apply  to  the  honor  and  fairness  of  a 
business  transaction."  —  Mr.  Blaine's 
speech  in  Congress,  April  24,  1876. 


"I  want  you  to  send  me  a  letter  such 
as  the  enclosed  draft.  .  .  .  Regard  this 
letter  as  strictly  confidential.  Do  not 
show  it  to  anyone.  If  you  can't  get  the 
letter  written  in  season  for  the  nine 
o'clock  mail  to  New  York,  please  be  sure 
to  mail  it  during  the  night.  .  .  .  Sin- 
cerely, J.  G.  B.  (Burn  this  letter)" — 
Blaine  to  Fisher,  April  16,  1876. 


BLAINE  LIE   NO.    9    [iN   PART] 


"Third. — I  do  not  own  and  never  did 
own  an  acre  of  coal  land  or  any  other  kind 
of  land  in  the  Hocking  Valley  or  in  any 
other  part  of  Ohio.  My  letter  to  the 
Hon,  Hezekiah  Bundy  in  July  last  on  this 
same  subject  was  accurately  true. 
Very  truly  yours, 

J.  G.  Blaine." 

(Letter   to    the    Hon.    Wm.    McKinley, 
dated  Belleaire,  Ohio,  Oct.  4,  1884.) 


"Boston,  Dec.  15,  1880. 
"Received  of  James  G.  Blaine,  $25,- 
180.50,  being  payment  in  full  for  one 
share  in  the  association  formed  for  the 
purchase  of  lands  known  as  the  Hope 
Furnace  Tract,  situated  in  Vinton  and 
Athens  Counties,  Ohio.  This  receipt  to 
be  exchanged  for  a  certificate  when  pre- 
pared. 

J.  N.  Denison,  Agent." 


462 


THE  EVENING  POST 


One  particularly  notable  use  of  the  parallel  columns 
was  in  contradiction  of  Blaine's  statement  that  subsequent 
to  his  purchase  of  the  bonds  of  the  Fort  Smith  railroad, 
only  one  act  of  Congress  had  been  passed  applying  to  the 
line,  and  that  merely  to  rectify  a  previous  mistake  in  legis- 
lation. The  fact  was,  as  the  paper  showed,  that  the  act 
repealed  the  proviso  that  the  railway's  grant  of  public 
lands  should  not  be  sold  for  more  than  $2.50  an  acre, 
thus  adding  to  the  value  of  its  securities. 

The  deadly  parallel  columns  were  applied  to  careless 
campaign  speakers  for  Blaine.  They  were  repeatedly 
used  against  the  leading  Blaine  newspapers,  the  New 
York  Tribune,  Philadelphia  Press,  Chicago  Tribune,  and 
Cincinnati  Commercial.  A  happy  stroke,  for  example, 
exhibited  their  efforts  to  ignore  the  second  batch  of  Mulli- 
gan letters: 


BLAINE'S    OWN    VIEW    OF    THE    LETTERS 

"There  is  not  a  word  in  the  letters 
which  is  not  entirely  consistent  with  the 
most  scrupulous  integrity  and  honor.  I 
hope  that  every  Republican  paper  in  the 
United  States  will  republish  them  in 
full." — Mr.  Blaine's  interview  with  the 
Kennebec  Journal,  Sept.  15,  1884. 


EARLY    VIEWS   OF    HIS   ORGANS 

The  Tribune,  Sept.  15,  1884,  sup- 
pressed all  the  letters  and  had  no  com- 
ments. 

The  Boston  Journal,  Sept.  15,  1884, 
suppressed  nine  letters,  gave  misleading 
summaries  of  many  of  them,  and  com- 
mented not  at  all  upon  the  suppressed 
ones. 

The  Philadelphia  Press,  Sept.  15,  1884, 
published  the  letters  in  a  part  of  its  edi- 
tion only,  and  had  no  comment. 


For  the  unprecedented  scandal-mongering  of  this  cam- 
paign, which  Godkin  called  fit  for  a  tenement  stairway, 
the  Evening  Post  and  other  decent  newspapers  felt  only 
disgust.  But  when  the  vicious  elements  in  Buffalo  which 
had  learned  to  hate  Cleveland  as  a  reform  Mayor  and 
Governor  revealed  the  fact  that,  as  a  young  man,  he  had 
once  formed  an  illicit  connection,  the  Post  felt  it  neces- 
sary to  treat  the  charge  in  detail  and  place  it  in  its  true 
importance.  A  large  number  of  clergymen,  suffrage 
leaders,  and  others  hastened  to  declare  that  no  man  with 
an  illegitimate  child  could  be  supported  for  the  Presi- 
dency. Considering  Blaine's  character,  this  seemed  to  the 
Post  both  ridiculous  and  vicious.  Which  was  better  fitted 
to  be  President,  a  man  once  unchaste,  as  Franklin,  Web- 
ster, and  Jefferson  had  been,  or  a  man  who  sold  his  official 


MUGWUMP  MOVEMENT  463 

power  for  money?  Godkin  argued  that  in  a  statesman 
official  probity  was  all  important,  while  an  early  lapse  in 
personal  morals  was  of  minor  significance: 

"Weil,  but,"  we  shall  be  asked,  "does  not  the  charge  against 
Cleveland,  as  you  yourselves  state  and  admit  it,  disqualify  him,  in 
your  estimation,  for  the  Presidency  of  the  United  Stages?"  We 
answer  frankly:  "Yes,  if  his  opponent  be  free  from  this  stain, 
and  as  good  a  man  in  all  other  ways."  We  should  like  to  see 
candidates  for  the  Presidency  models  of  all  the  virtues,  pure  as  the 
Know  and  steadfast  as  the  eternal  hills.  But  when  the  alternative 
is  a  man  of  whom  the  Buffalo  Express,  a.  political  opponent,  said 
immediately  after  his  nomination,  "that  the  people  of  Buffalo  had 
known  him  as  one  of  their  worthiest  citizens,  one  of  their  man- 
liest men,  faithful  to  his  clients,  faithful  to  his  friends,  and  faith- 
ful to  every  public  trust"  ...  a  good  son  and  good  brother,  and 
unmarried  in  order  that  he  might  be  the  better  son  and  brother, 
against  whom  nothing  can  be  said  except  that  he  has  not  been 
proof  against  one  of  the  most  powerful  temptations  by  which 
human  nature  is  assailed;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  a  man  convicted 
out  of  his  own  mouth  of  having  publicly  lied  in  order  to  hide  his 
jobbery  in  office,  of  having  offered  his  judicial  decisions  as  a  sign 
of  his  possible  usefulness  to  railroad  speculators  in  case  they  paid 
him  his  price,  of  trading  in  charters  which  had  been  benefited  by 
legislation  in  which  he  took  part,  and  of  having  broken  his  word 
of  honor  in  order  to  destroy  documentary  evidence  of  his  corrup- 
tion— a  man  who  has  accumulated  a  fortune  in  a  few  years  on  the 
salary  of  a  Congressman — then  we  say  emphatically  no — ten 
thousand  times  no. 

A  public  office  like  the  Presidency  was  not  a  reward 
for  a  blameless  private  life,  insisted  Godkin,  but  a  heavy 
duty  and  responsibility,  to  be  given  only  to  a  statesman 
of  ability  and  official  integrity.  Schurz  pointed  out  that 
Hamilton,  the  founder  of  the  Post,  was  once  placed  in  a 
position  where  he  had  to  remain  silent  concerning  a  slur 
upon  his  honesty  in  office,  or  confess  to  an  offense  like 
Cleveland's;  and  he  hesitated  not  an  instant  to  clear  his 
public  honor  at  this  cost  to  private  reputation.  The  ar- 
ticles of  the  Evening  Post  and  Nation  powerfully  con- 
duced to  right  thinking  on  this  subject. 

The  abuse  visited  upon  the  Evening  Post  in  this  cam- 


464  THE  EVENING  POST 

paign  was  the  greatest  since  the  slavery  struggle.  The 
Chicago  Tribune  said  that  "it  was  a  natural  instinct  of 
servility  to  the  great  corporations  that  has  bound  it  with 
hoops  of  steel  to  Cleveland's  cause" ;  a  remarkable  charge 
in  view  of  the  fact  that  Jay  Gould,  H.  H.  Rogers,  Cyrus 
W.  Field,  Russell  Sage,  H.  D.  Armour,  and  other  cor- 
poration heads  supported  Blaine,  and  by  their  dinner  with 
him  at  Delmonico's  just  before  election — "Belshazzar's 
Feast" — did  not  a  little  to  defeat  him.  "The  Evening 
Post  has  finally  gone  down  so  low,"  remarked  the  Pough- 
keepsie  Eagle  in  September,  "that  it  lies  about  itself." 
The  Harrisburgh  Telegraph  published  an  attack  by 
Bryant  upon  Jefferson  as  proof  that  the  Post  had  always 
been  addicted  to  malevolent  personalities;  not  mentioning 
the  fact  that  Bryant  had  written  these  verses  in  1803,  ^t 
the  age  of  nine,  twenty-three  years  before  he  joined  the 
Post.  The  New  York  Tribune  turned  Godkin's  state- 
ment, "Cleveland's  virtues  are  those  which  bind  human 
^society  together,"  into  "Cleveland's  sins  are  of  the  sort 
which  bind  society  together,"  and  repeatedly  printed  it  in 
this  form.  As  for  Dana's  Sun,  it  continually  called  the 
Post  "stupid";  but  Dana  this  year  was  proving  his  own 
brilliance  by  supporting  the  farcical  Greenback  candidacy 
of  Ben  Butler,  who  polled  3,500  votes  in  New  York  city. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  paper  received  a  steady  stream 
of  congratulatory  letters.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  wrote 
in  September  that  the  editorials  were  clear,  honest,  and 
weighty.  "How  any  one  who  has  read  them  can  vote 
for  Blaine  passes  my  comprehension.  They  ought  to  be 
circulated  over  the  whole  land  as  one  of  the  best  cam- 
paign documents.  They  stand  in  striking  contrast  with 
the  inefficient  speeches  of  Hawley,  Hoard,  and  Dawes, 
and  the  essays  and  letters  of  Mead,  Bliss  &  Co.  Allow 
me  to  say  that  the  Evening  Post  has  never  stood  higher 
in  its  long  and  honorable  life  than  now.  It  may  almost 
be  called  the  ideal  family  newspaper."  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  editorials  were  circulated  as  campaign  docu- 
ments. Godkin's  articles  on  Blaine's  railway  transactions 
sold  20,000  copies  in  pamphlet  form  before  Sept.   20, 


MUGWUMP  MOVEMENT  465 

when  a  revised  edition  appeared.     In  October  the  Post 
Issued  a  pamphlet  called  "The  Young  Men's  Party,'*  by- 
Col.  T.  W.  Higginson,  and  another  which  embraced  a 
reply  to  George  Bliss  and  the  table  of  ten  Blaine  false- 
hoods.    In  the  closing  days  of  the  campaign  the  paper 
received  subscriptions  of  $1,000  a  week  for  the  Inde- 
pendent Campaign  Fund.     Godkin  maintained  his  fierce 
editorial  attacks  to  the  last  moment,   and  did  not  fail 
to  make  the  most  of  the  "Rum-Romanism-Rebellion"  in- 
discretion of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Burchard,  saying  that  Blaine 
had  given  "tacit  assent"  to  this  insult  against  Catholicism. 
The  fight  was  by  no  means  won  with  the  closing  of  the 
polls  on  election  day,  Nov.  4.     Early  next  morning  every 
one  knew  that  Cleveland  had  carried  the  South,  New 
Jersey,  Connecticut,  and  Indiana,  that  his  election  was 
assured  if  he  had  carried  New  York,  and  that  New  York 
was  doubtful.    The  fVorld  claimed  the  Empire  State  for 
the  Democrats,  and  the  Sun  conceded  it  to  them,  but  the 
Tribune  declared  that  Blaine  had  won.    The  Pastes  head- 
lines that  afternoon  ran:  "Cleveland  Probably  Elected — 
213  Electoral  Votes  for  Him — New  York  In  Cleveland 
Column" ;  while  the  editorial  declared  simply  that,  with 
the   returns   very   backward,    the   indications  were    that 
Cleveland  had  a  safe  majority.     Crowds  all  day  filled 
the  streets  In  front  of  the  bulletin  boards,  and  for  a  time 
there  was  a  threat  of  rioting  against  Jay  Gould  and  the 
Western  Union  Telegraph  officers,  who  were  accused  of 
delaying  and  tampering  with  the  returns  In  the  Interest  of 
Blaine.    With  an  audacity  born  of  their  memory  of  1876, 
the  Republicans  continued  to  claim  the  victory  all  day 
Thursday  the  6th.     The  Tribune  footed  up  the  county 
returns  for  New  York  as  giving  Blaine  a  plurality  of 
1,166,  but  the  addition  was  inaccurate — they  really  gave 
Cleveland  a  plurality  of   128  I     The  Associated  Press, 
whose  returns  were  Inexcusably  fragmentary  and  late, 
gave  Cleveland   1,057  plurality,  and  the  Post,  with  its 
own  dispatches  from  every  county  save  one,  1,378 — the 
official  figure  being  later  given  as   1,149.     The  excited 
Mail  and  Express  made  the  same  blunder  as  the  Tribune, 


466  THE  EVENING  POST 

claiming  New  York  for  Blaine  when  Its  own  Inaccurately 
added  table  of  counties  gave  Cleveland  a  plurality  of 
4,000.  At  two  a.  m.  on  the  7th  the  Associated  Press 
announced  Cleveland's  election,  and  Godkin  was  able  to 
write :  ♦ 

At  daylight  this  morning  everybody  conceded  Cleveland's  elec- 
tion save  the  TributiCj  which  remains  in  doubt.  If  it  persists  in 
declaring  Blaine  elected  there  will  be  two  inauguration  cere- 
monies on  March  4,  one  of  Cleveland  in  Washington  and  one  of 
Blaine  on  the  steps  of  the  Tribune  building,  the  oath  of  office 
being  administered  by  William  Walter  Phelps. 

II 

Gur  one  American  President  whose  dislike  of  news- 
papers In  general  could  be  called  Intense  was  Cleveland. 
He  deeply  resented  the  mud-slinging  In  which  they  had 
Indulged  against  both  himself  and  Blaine  during  his  first 
campaign;  and  when  he  married  In  1886,  he  was  outraged 
by  the  manner  in  which  a  crowd  of  correspondents  fol- 
lowed him  into  the  Maryland  hills  on  his  honeymoon, 
occupied  points  of  vantage,  and  spied  upon  him  with 
field-glasses.  Late  that  year  he  spoke  of  the  "silly,  mean, 
and  cowardly  lies"  of  the  press,  and  of  the  "ghoulish 
glee"  with  which  it  desecrated  every  sacred  relation  of 
private  life,  an  utterance  which  Mr.  Godkin  emphasized 
by  editorial  endorsement,  for  no  editor  ever  hated  news- 

^  paper  mendacity  and  sensationalism  more  than  Godkin. 
Cleveland's  hottest  wrath  was  reserved  for  Dana's  Sun, 
which  professed  to  believe  that  he  culled  his  speeches 
from  an  encyclopedia,  and  that  Miss  Cleveland  wrote 
his  messages  to  Congress;  when  in  1890  the  Sun  made 
some  offensive  reference  to  his  corpulence,  Mr.  Cleve- 
land expressed  his  feelings  without  restraint.  But  he 
made  one  exception  In  his  general  dislike.     He  read  the 

^  Evening  Post  faithfully,  respected  its  views,  and  had  a 
high  regard  for  Mr.  Godkin,  whom  he  knew  personally. 
His  friendliness  had  ample  reason,  for  the  Post  sup- 
ported almost  every  act  of  his  first  administration.  It 
praised  his  early  observance,  in  spirit  and  letter,  of  the 


MUGWUMP  MOVEMENT  467 

Civil  Service  law,  and  his  courageous  veto  of  vicious  little 
pension  bills.  Above  all,  It  maintained  that  his  adminis- 
tration was  an  Invaluable  demonstration  that  the  unity 
of  the  nation  was  real,  that  It  was  no  longer  necessary 
for  one  section  and  party  to  monopolize  political  power. 
One  New  Yorker,  the  day  after  Cleveland's  election,  had 
offered  In  a  fit  of  rage  and  despair  to  sell  Godkin  his 
securities  for  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar.  Some  men  had 
believed  that  the  tariff  would  be  wrecked  overnight,  and 
that  the  Confederacy  would  return  "to  the  saddle"  and 
compel  the  North  to  pay  an  indemnity  of  billions  in  settle- 
ment of  Civil  War  damages.  From  this  nightmare,  which 
disposed  men  to  put  up  with  all  sorts  of  Republican  cor- 
ruption, a  Democratic  administration  had  been  necessary 
to  rescue  the  country. 

Mr.  Godkin  never  called  Cleveland  brilliant,  and  ^ 
praised  him  rather  for  an  honest  obstructiveness,  balking 
the  schemes  of  raiders,  visionaries,  and  predatory  Inter- 
ests, than  for  marked  constructive  abilities.  Like  the 
other  "Mugwump"  organs,  the  Evening  Post  wa.s  offended 
In  1887-88  by  his  apparent  acquiescence  In  several  raids 
upon  the  civil  service  by  spoilsmen.  In  April,  1889,  It 
accused  the  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Mr.  J. 
H.  Maynard,  of  bringing  heavy  pressure  to  bear  upon 
the  New  York  Custom  House  for  the  dismissal  of  capable 
Republicans.  Maynard  denied  the  charge  in  a  hot  tele- 
gram; the  Evening  Post  appealed  to  the  Senate  Com- 
mittee upon  the  Civil  Service  to  come  to  New  York  and 
investigate;  and  it  did  so,  sustaining  the  Posfs  charges 
in  their  entirety.  But  Mr.  Godkin  never  forgot  the  con- 
sideration which  Cleveland  later  urged  in  defending  him- 
self: "You  know  the  things  in  which  I  yielded;  but  no 
one  save  myself  can  ever  know  the  things  which  I  re- 
sisted." The  President,  said  the  Evening  Post,  had  fallen  (^ 
short  of  his  promises,  but  had  done  far  more  than  any 
predecessor.  "No  man,  for  example,  who  has  filled  the 
Presidential  chair  since  Jackson's  day  would  have  listened 
for  one  moment  to  the  suggestion  that  the  New  York 
Post  Office  should  be  taken  out  of  politics,  or  would  have 


468 


THE  EVENING  POSl 


kept  the  Custom  House  In  its  present  comparatively  neu- 
tral condition,  or  postponed  the  removal  of  the  great 
bulk  of  officers  to  the  end  of  their  terms,  or  extended  in 
any  degree  the  application  of  the  rules,  or  have  so  steadily 
used  his  veto  to  oppose  Congressional  jobbery  and  ex- 
travagance. No  one,  too,  has  kept  the  White  House 
and  its  purlieus  so  free  from  the  small  scandals  which 
worked  so  much  disgrace  in  the  days  of  Grant,  Hayes, 
Garfield,  and  Arthur." 

In  1888  the  Post  showed  genuine  enthusiasm  in  advo- 
cating the  election  of  Cleveland  over  Benjamin  Harrison. 
His  courageous  message  in  favor  of  a  low  tariff  in  De- 
cember, 1887,  which  did  so  much  to  ensure  his  defeat  the 
next  fall,  met  the  views  of  the  editors  precisely.  The 
Republicans  declared  in  their  platform  for  maintenance 
of  the  existing  tariff,  but  for  a  reduction  in  the  internal 
revenue  taxes,  and  Godkin  labeled  them  the  party  of 
"high  clothes  and  cheap  whisky."  A  sharp  attack  was 
?nade  upon  Harrison's  Congressional  record — "the  advo- 
cate of  centralization,  the  defender  of  reckless  pension 
schemes,  the  friend  of  Hennepin  Canal  jobs."  Once 
more,  but  moderately,  parallel  columns  were  employed; 


MURAT    HALSTEAD    (rEP.) 

"The  bottom  truth  about  Cleveland  is 
that  he  may  have  been  a  Copperhead,  for 
he  is  of  about  that  grade  of  snake,  but 
he  has  been  too  ignorant  all  his  life  to  be 
an  intelligent  member  of  any  political 
party." 


HUGH     m'cULLOCH     (rEP.) 

"I  have  watched  Mr.  Cleveland's  Ad- 
ministration very  carefully,  and  I  con- 
sider it  to  have  been  marked  with  signal 
ability  and  uprightness." 


Cleveland's  defeat  the  Evening  Post  attributed  in  part, 
It  Is  Interesting  to  note,  to  the  folly  of  the  New  York 
Democrats  In  nominating  David  B.  Hill  for  Governor, 
a  choice  which  disgusted  Independent  voters.  "Naturally, 
Harrison's  administration  confirmed  by  a  half  dozen  acts 
the  paper's  loyalty  to  the  ex-President.  The  choice  of 
Blaine  to  be  Secretary  of  State,  the  McKInley  Tariff 
Act,  the  Service  Pensions  Act  of  1890,  and  the  Sherman 
Silver-Purchase  Act  seemed  to  the  editors,  and  to  a  great 
body  of  Intelligent  and  thoughtful  citizens,  to  be  so  many 
milestones  on  a  road  of  perversity  and  danger.  The 
reckless  way  in  which  our  foreign  relations  were  handled, 


MUGWUMP  MOVEMENT  469 

as  we  shall  see  later,  aroused  grave  apprehensions  In  Mr. 
Godkin.  At  the  moment  when  the  disgust  of  the  Evening 
Post  with  the  Republican  Party  was  deepest,  In  February, 
1 89 1,  Cleveland's  famous  letter  In  opposition  to  the  free 
coinage  of  silver,  characterizing  It  as  a  ''dangerous  and 
reckless  experiment,"  was  published.  All  his  enemies, 
Dana  at  their  head,  thought  that  by  this  courageous  act 
he  had  destroyed  himself  politically.  So  did  many  Demo- 
crats. "Again,"  wrote  Godkin,  "the  shrewd  politicians 
sat  down  on  the  party  stoop  and  wept,  and  prepared  sor- 
rowfully to  nominate  a  first-class  juggler  in  the  person 
of  David  B.  Hill,  who  was  to  show  the  wretched  Mug- 
wumps how  much  better  it  was  to  be  able  to  keep  six  balls 
In  the  air  than  to  be  able  to  show  the  absurdity  of  a  fluc- 
tuating currency." 

But  Cleveland's  uncompromising  stroke  filled  the  Eve- 
ning Post  with  joy.  It  had  feared  the  Democratic  Party 
was  rushing  down  a  steep  place  to  destruction  by  accepting 
an  alliance  with  these  silver  enthusiasts  who  were  trying 
to  debase  the  currency.  Now  It  had  faith  in  the  willing- 
ness of  the  party  rank  and  file  to  respond  to  the  ex- 
President's  unflinching  words.  As  it  turned  out,  the  news- 
paper was  right.  The  people  recognized  the  voice  of  a 
real  statesman,  and  the  scheming  bosses  who  had  rejoiced 
at  his  supposed  political  suicide,  found  that  he  had  at 
once  rescued  the  party  from  a  ruinous  coalition  with  the 
Populists,  and  made  his  own  renomlnatlon  Inevitable. 
In  the  canvass  which  followed  this  renomlnatlon,  the 
Evening  Post  found  It  unnecessary  to  say  much  about  the 
silver  question,  so  completely  had  Cleveland  knocked  It 
out  of  the  campaign,  and  it  centered  Its  attention  upon  the 
McKInley  Tariff.  That  wages  had  fallen  in  many  in- 
dustries, that  prices  of  many  groups  of  commodities  had 
risen,  and  that  a  hundred  "tariff  trusts"  had  attained  new 
vigor  behind  the  McKInley  bulwark,  was  shown  in  a  long 
series  of  editorial  articles.  Lowell  had  already,  while 
the  McKInley  Act  was  pending,  published  anonymously 
in  the  Evening  Post  a  satirical  poem  upon  the  argument 
that  higher  rates  were  needed  to  protect  our  "infant  in- 


470  THE  EVENING  POST 

dustrles."  When  Cleveland  was  decisively  reelected  that 
November,  Godkin  traced  his  victory  primarily  to  the 
effect  his  anti-tariff  message  of  1887  ^^^  ^^^  anti-free- 
silver  letter  of  1891  had  produced  upon  men: 

Mr.  Cleveland's  triumph  to-day  has  been  largely  due  to  the 
young  voters  who  have  come  on  the  stage  since  the  reign  of  pas- 
sion and  prejudice  came  to  an  end  and  the  era  of  discussion  has 
opened.  If  the  last  canvass  has  consisted  largely  of  appeals  to 
reason,  to  facts,  to  the  lessons  of  human  experience  ...  it  is  to 
Mr.  Cleveland,  let  us  tell  them,  that  they  owe  it.  But  they  are 
indebted  to  him  for  something  far  more  valuable  than  even  this — 
for  an  example  of  splendid  courage  in  the  defense  and  assertion 
of  honestly  formed  opinions;  of  Roman  constancy  under  defeat, 
and  of  patient  reliance  on  the  power  of  deliberation  and  persuasion 
on  the  American  people.  Nothing  is  more  Important,  in  these 
days  of  boodle,  of  indifference,  of  cheap  bellicose  patriotism,  than 
that  this  confidence  in  the  might  of  common  sense  and  sound  doc- 
trine and  free  speech  should  be  kept  alive. 

No  one  reading  this  editorial  would  have  believed 
that  within  little  more  than  three  years  Mr.  Godkin  would 
turn  savagely  upon  the  man  whose  fine  qualities  he  thus 
praised.  Mr.  Godkin  would  not  have  believed  it.  Cleve- 
land's second  administration  began  well,  and  his  policy 
was  particularly  liked  by  the  Post  in  that  field  of  foreign 
relations  in  which  the  break  was  to  come.  He  withdrew 
the  treaty  for  the  annexation  of  Hawaii,  which  Godkin 
had  opposed.  He  protected  American  rights  in  Cuba, 
but  maintained  strict  American  neutrality  in  the  war 
Spain  was  waging  there.  When  Great  Britain  put  in  a 
claim  of  damages  against  Nicaragua,  and  landed  marines 
to  collect  the  money,  Cleveland  acted  with  admirable  dis- 
cretion and  tact.  His  belligerent  Venezuelan  message 
of  December,  1895,  indeed,  was  almost  a  flash  out  of  a 
clear  sky. 

To  understand  the  consternation  with  which  Godkin 
received  this  message,  which  seemed  to  presage  certain 
war  with  England,  It  must  be  appreciated  how  much  he 
abhorred  jingoism  and  war.  When  Crimean  correspond- 
ent for  the  London  Daily  News  he  had  described  the 


MUGWUMP  MOVEMENT  471 

horrors  of  the  battlefields  with  indignation;  and  the  suf- 
fering back  of  the  lines — "the  great  ocean  of  misery  which 
war  has  caused  to  roll  over  the  heads  of  mankind  ever 
since  wars  began" — he  thought  even  more  heartrending. 
He  was  no  pacifist:  a  war  in  a  good  cause,  like  the  war  of 
the  North  to  extinguish  slavery  and  disunion,  he  ap- 
proved. But  wars  merely  to  vindicate  what  some  one 
fancied  to  be  "national  honor"  he  abominated  as  the 
worst  relic  of  savagery ; 

Jingoism  is,  in  fact,  like  Indian  readiness  for  war,  simply 
another  name  for  imperfect  civilization.  It  is  a  simple  outburst 
like  negro-burning,  lynching,  and  jail-breaking,  of  the  imperfectly 
subdued  barbarous  instincts  of  an  earlier  time.  To  get  men  to 
abandon  fighting  as  the  chief  and  most  honorable  business  of 
their  lives,  and  the  only  respectable  way  of  ending  disputes,  has 
been  the  main  work  of  modern  civilization ;  and  what  hard  work 
it  has  been,  one  has  only  to  read  a  little  Froissart  or  Joinville 
to  sec. 

We  must  also  appreciate  that  Cleveland's  act  seemed 
to  Godkin  a  base  surrender  to  jingo  elements  in  American 
politics  which  he  had  hitherlo  been  opposing.  As  we 
have  said,  the  Evening  Post  had  lamented  what  it  thought 
the  defiant  tone  of  Harrison's  foreign  policy.  This  it 
attributed  to  Blaine's  desire  to  be  a  "brilliant"  Secretary 
of  State.  When  he  held  that  position  under  Garfield,  he 
had  promptly  embroiled  the  United  States  with  Chile, 
and  it  had  fallen  to  President  Arthur  to  appoint  a  new 
Secretary  and  extricate  the  nation.  Seven  years  later  he 
had  returned,  and  what  had  he  done?  He  had  made  an 
effort  to  exercise  the  right  of  search  on  British  vessels  in 
the  Bering  Sea,  had  filled  Harrison's  administration  with 
the  resulting  controversy,  and  had  maneuvered  the  United 
States  into  a  position  In  which  it  was  defeated  In  arbitra- 
tion proceedings.  Since  Cleveland's  inauguration  the 
editors  of  the  Evening  Post  had  constantly  deplored  the 
bellicose  talk  indulged  in  by  a  considerable  group  of  Re- 
publicans. Henry  Cabot  Lodge  In  the  spring  of  1895 
had  predicted  a  war  in  Europe,  hinted  that  we  might  be 
drawn  into  it,  and  said  that  the  British  fortifications  at 


472  THE  EVENING  POST 

Halifax,  Bermuda,  Kingston,  and  Esqulmault  "threaten 
us."  The  same  month  Senator  Frye,  at  Bridgeport,  had 
called  for  a  strong  navy,  and  declared:  "We  [the  Re- 
publicans] will  show  people  a  foreign  policy  that  is  Amer- 
ican in  every  fiber,  and  hoist  the  American  flag  on  what- 
ever island  we  think  best,  and  no  hand  shall  ever  pull  it 
down."  Senator  Cullom  wanted  Cuba  instantly  annexed. 
Godkin  was  justified  in  writing  (Feb.  13,  1895)  : 

The  number  of  men  and  officials  in  this  country  who  are  now 
mad  to  fight  somebody  is  appalling.  Navy  officers  dream  of  war 
and  talk  and  lecture  about  it  incessantly.  The  Senate  debates  are 
filled  with  predictions  of  impending  war  and  with  talk  of  pre- 
paring for  it  at  once.  With  the  country  under  the  necessity  for  the 
most  stringent  economy,  appropriations  of  $12,000,000  for  battle- 
ships are  urged  upon  Congress,  not  because  we  need  them  now, 
but  because  we  shall  need  them  "in  the  next  great  war."  Most 
truculent  and  bloodthirsty  of  all,  the  Jingo  editors  keep  up  a  din 
day  after  day  about  the  way  we  could  cripple  one  country's  fleet 
and  destroy  another's  commerce,  and  fill  the  heads  of  boys  and 
silly  men  with  the  idea  that  war  is  the  normal  state  of  a  civilized 
country. 

To  the  early  stages  of  the  controversy  between  Ven- 
ezuela and  England  over  the  western  boundary  of  British 
Guiana  neither  the  Evening!  Post  nor  any  other  journal 
paid  close  attention.  Mr.  Godkin  did  not  think  that  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  could  properly  be  stretched  to  cover 
American  interference  in  the  quarrel;  and  when  Secretary 
Olney  asked  Great  Britain  to  submit  the  dispute  to  arbi- 
tration, and  Lord  Salisbury  refused,  Godkm  defended 
Salisbury's  action  upon  the  ground  that  we  had  tended  to 
prejudge  the  case  in  Venezuela's  favor.  As  yet  the  editor 
was  not  disturbed,  trusting  the  President  implicitly.  But 
suddenly,  on  Dec.  17,  1895,  Cleveland  sent  Congress  a 
message  asking  for  the  appointment  of  a  commission  to 
determine  the  boundary,  and  stating  that  it  would  be  the 
duty  of  the  United  States  "to  resist  by  every  means  in  its 
power,  as  a  wilful  aggression  upon  its  rights  and  Inter- 
ests," the  taking  by  Great  Britain  of  any  lands  that  the 
commission  assigned  to  Venezuela. 


MUGWUMP  MOVEMENT  473 

*'I  was  thunderstruck,"  Godkin  wrote  Charles  Eliot 
Norton.  He  described  the  week  that  followed  as  "the 
most  anxious  I  have  known  in  my  career."  For  the  first 
three  days  the  United  States  seemed  to  rise  in  unanimous 
support  of  Cleveland.  Republican  newspapers  like  the 
Tribune,  which  had  never  said  a  good  word  for  him, 
rushed  to  his  assistance.  The  editor  saw  so  much  jingo- 
ism among  even  Intelligent  people,  he  said,  "that  the  pros- 
pect which  seemed  to  open  itself  before  me  was  a  long 
fight  against  a  half-crazed  public,  under  a  load  of  abuse, 
and  the  discredit  of  foreign  birth,  etc.,  etc." ;  but  he  never 
hesitated. 

The  first  afternoon  there  was  time  to  write  only  a  para- 
graph editorial  expressing  consternation  at  the  doctrine 
that  the  United  States  should  "assert  such  ownership  of 
the  American  hemisphere  as  will  enable  us  to  trace  all  the 
boundary  lines  on  it  to  our  own  satisfaction  in  defiance 
of  the  rest  of  the  world."  On  the  second  day  the  Evening 
Post  devoted  both  its  column  editorials  to  the  subject. 
The  first,  "Mr.  Cleveland's  Coup  d'Etat,"  drew  a  strik- 
ing contrast  between  war,  with  all  It  involved  of  suffering, 
loss,  and  moral  deterioration,  and  the  triviality  of  the 
possible  cause,  a  wrangle  about  an  obscure  boundary  line. 
The  second  reviewed  the  Venezuela  correspondence,  and 
attempting  to  refute  Cleveland's  arguments,  said  that  his 
message  "humiliates  us  by  Its  self-contradictions,"  and 
characterized  his  proposal  for  a  boundary  commission  as 
"ludicrously  Insulting  and  illogical." 

In  later  issues  the  Evening  Post  mingled  invective  with 
calm,  sound  argument.  It  tried  to  show  that  Salisbury's 
claims  In  British  Guiana  had  been,  in  the  main,  supported 
by  Incontestable  evidence.  It  traced  the  history  of  our 
relations  with  Venezuela,  and  demonstrated  that  the  little 
republic  had  missed  few  opportunities  to  treat  us  in- 
solently. It  declared  that  a  commission  of  inquiry  might 
be  proper,  but  that  it  was  indefensible  to  create  one  as 
a  hostile  proceeding,  with  a  threat  of  war  behind  it. 
Months  earlier,  during  the  Nicaragua  dispute,  the  Eve- 
ning Post  had  issued  in  pamphlet  form  an  essay  by  John 


474  THE  EVENING  POST 

Bassett  Moore  upon  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  showing  that 
it  gave  the  United  States  no  right  of  Interference  In  such 
affairs,  and  this  It  now  sold  In  large  quantities.  Godkin 
unfortunately  prejudiced  his  case  by  two  errors — he  failed 
to  allow  for  the  strong  sentiment  of  most  Americans  In 
favor  of  a  flexible  Interpretation  of  the  Doctrine,  and  he 
unjustly  hinted  that  Cleveland  was  eyeing  a  third  term. 

But  the  editor's  fears  that  he  would  stand  alone  were 
at  once  dissipated.  The  World  lost  no  time  In  denouncing 
the  belligerent  message  as  "A  Great  Blunder,"  and  so  did 
the  Journal  of  Commerce.  Among  prominent  Democratic 
newspapers  which  took  their  stand  with  the  Evening  Post 
were  the  Charleston  News  and  Courier,  Wilmington 
Every  Evening,  Memphis  Commercial,  and  Louisville 
Post.  The  Cleveland  Plain  Dealer  summed  up  the  view 
of  a  multitude  of  thoughtful  men  in  a  little  jest:  ''Teach- 
er: — Johnny,  now  tell  us  what  we  learn  from  the  Monroe 
Doctrine.  Johnny: — That  the  other  fellow's  wrong." 
Prof.  J.  W.  Burgess  of  Columbia  contributed  to  the 
Evening  Post  a  column  article,  in  which  he  said:  '*0n  the 
whole,  I  have  never  read  a  more  arrogant  demand  than 
that  now  set  up  by  President  Cleveland  and  Secretary 
Olney,  in  all  diplomatic  history."  Half  a  dozen  times 
In  the  next  fortnight  the  Post  filled  one  or  two  columns 
with  letters  of  congratulation  and  support.  Its  circula- 
tion rose  materially.  ''In  fact,"  wrote  Godkin  when  it 
was  all  over,  with  a  touch  of  his  eternal  irony,  "our  course 
has  proved  the  greatest  success  I  have  ever  had  and  ever 
known  in  journalism." 

As  every  one  knows,  Lord  Salisbury  finally  accepted 
arbitration,  and  the  result  was  that  the  British  obtained 
practically  all  the  territory  for  which  they  had  contended. 
The  peaceful  ending  of  the  episode,  and  the  gratification 
of  the  public  over  the  President's  assertion  of  the  national 
dignity,  as  most  men  viewed  It,  left  Cleveland  with  in- 
creased prestige.  The  editors  of  the  Evening  Post  never 
changed  their  opinion,  but  the  incident,  of  course,  did 
not  materially  shake  their  esteem  of  Cleveland.     When 


MUGWUMP  MOVEMENT  475 

he  went  out  of  office,  the  newspaper  reviewed  his  eight 
years  as  the  most  satisfactory  since  the  Civil  War,  praised 
his  plain  speech,  courage,  and  honesty  highly,  and  de- 
clared that  he  had  made  "a  deeper  mark  upon  the  history 
of  his  time  than  any  save  the  greatest  of  his  predeces- 
sors." 


CHAPTER  TWENTY-TWO 


GODKIN's  war  without  quarter  upon  TAMMANY 

When  William  Dean  Howells  summed  up  Mr.  God- 
kin's  career,  he  wrote  that,  influential  as  were  his  dis- 
cussions of  national  and  international  issues,  his  greatest 
reputation  was  won  by  his  assaults  upon  the  indecent  cor- 
ruption of  the  government  of  New  York  city.  "For  a 
long  series  of  years  he  cried  aloud  and  spared  not;  his 
burning  wit,  his  crushing  invective,  his  biting  sarcasm, 
his  amusing  irony,  his  pitiless  logic,  were  all  devoted  to 
the  extermination  of  the  rascality  by  nature  and  rascals 
by  name  who  misruled  that  hapless  clty,^here  they  in- 
deed afterwards  changed  their  name  but  not  their  na- 
ture." In  this  contest,  Howells  believed,  he  became  "not 
only  a  great  New  York  journalist,  but  distinctively  the 
greatest,  since  he  was  more  singly  devoted  to  civic  affairs 
than  any  other  great  New  York  journalist  ever  was." 
The  only  contemporary  editor  whose  prominence  equaled 
his  own,  Charles  A.  Dana,  aligned  himself  for  the  most 
part  upon  the  Tammany  side. 

Howells  thought  that  the  editor  wore  himself  out 
while  apparently  accomplishing  little,  because  the  people 
tired  of  the  contest  before  he  did.  But  Mr.  Godkin  had 
the  pleasure  in  1895  of  writing  the  preface  to  a  volume 
called  "The  Triumph  of  Reform,"  which  really  chronicled 
a  temporary  triumph — that  following  the  Lexow  investi- 
gation; while  he  powerfully  aided  in  the  slow  arousal  o{ 
the  public  conscience  which  has  made  each  renewal  of  the 
city's  misgovernment  a  little  less  bad.  He  enjoyed  the 
struggle,  as  he  enjoyed  all  hot  fighting,  an  unusual  num- 
ber of  amusing  episodes  gave  zest  to  it,  and  there  Is  no 
evidence  that  he  felt  discouraged  at  the  end. 

When  in  1884  Godkin  first  began  treating  municipal 
affairs  in  the  Evening  Post  with  his  usual  aggressive  style, 

476 


GODKIN'S  WAR  UPON  TAMMANY      477 

the  city  had  biennial  elections  and  the  certainty  that  a 
Democratic  Mayor  would  always  be  chosen.  None  but 
a  Democrat  had  been  elected  since  1872,  and  none  was 
to  be  elected  until  1894,  a  state  of  things  which  a  number 
of  Republican  bosslets  —  "Johnny"  O'Brien,  "Mike" 
Cregan,  "Barney"  BIglin,  "Jake"  Hess,  and  "Steve" 
French — regarded  with  complacency  because  they  shared 
the  Tammany  pickings.  The  essential  question  was  alX^ 
ways  whether  the  Mayor  should  be  a  Tammany  Demo-  ) 
crat  or  a  Democrat  representing  the  reform  wing  (the 
County  Democracy),  and  in  the  determination  of  this  the 
willingness  or  unwillingness  of  the  Republican  rank  and 
file  to  join  hands  with  the  reform  Democrats  was  always 
a  leading  factor.  In  every  election  in  the  eighties  the 
Republican  bosslets  put  their  own  ticket  into  the  field,  thus 
drawing  the  fire  of  non-partisan  reformers  like  Mr.  God- 
kin,  but  sometimes  the  majority  of  Republicans  could  be 
brought  behind  what  was  really  a  coalition  nomination. 

At  the  outset,  in  1884,  occurred  one  of  the  most  grat- 
ifying surprises  in  the  whole  history  of  New  York  poli- 
tics— the  election  of  William  R.  Grace,  a  reform  Demo- 
crat, over  the  Tammany  candidate,  a  disreputable  poli- 
tician named  Hugh  J.  Grant.  The  victory  was  the  more 
unexpected  because  it  was  generally  believed  that  John 
Kelly,  the  Tammany  chieftain  who  had  succeeded  Tweed, 
had  made  an  infamous  compact  with  the  Blaine  Repub- 
licans, by  which  they  were  to  trade  votes  and  give  the 
State  to  Blaine  and  the  city  to  Grant.  Kelly  had  always 
disliked  Cleveland.  Just  before  the  election  Thomas  A. 
Hendricks,  who  was  running  for  the  Vice-Presidency  with 
Cleveland,  made  a  thousand-mile  journey  from  Indiana 
to  hold  a  protracted  night  conference  with  Kelly,  and 
many  have  held  that  he  succeeded  in  winning  him  over  to 
support  the  national  ticket.  But  Godkin  refused  to  ac- 
cept this  explanation  of  the  result.  Kelly  had  failed  to 
deliver  the  vote,  he  wrote,  because  Grace  was  an  honored 
Catholic  who  drew  many  Irish  Democrats  away  from 
Grant,  while  Republicans  by  thousands  had  voted  for 
Blaine  and  Grace  when  they  were  expected  to  vote  for 


478  THE  EVENING  POST 

Blaine  and  Grant.  Kelly,  though  the  most  stolid  of  men, 
was  confined  to  his  house  for  weeks  by  nervous  depression, 
and  soon  retired.  His  downfall  inspired  Godkin  to  utter 
a  prophecy  which  time,  bringing  Richard  Croker  to  the 
front,  partly  belied: 


We  doubt  if  the  city  will  ever  again  be  afflicted  with  a  boss  who 
will  be  Kelly's  equal  in  ability  and  power.  There  will,  of  course, 
be  other  bosses,  but  they  will  be  of  a  different  kind.  They  must 
possess  qualities  which  will  enable  them  to  rule  under  the  new 
conditions  which  will  prevail  after  Jan.  i  next.  Kelly  succeeded 
Tweed,  and  for  a  time  was  almost  his  equal  in  power,  but  he  was 
a  different  boss  from  Tweed.  He  was  never  personally  corrupt. 
He  arranged  **fat  things  for  the  boj^s,"  and  put  into  our  local 
offices  and  into  the  Legislature  about  the  worst  succession  of  polit- 
ical speculators  and  strikers  that  the  city  has  ever  been  called 
upon  to  endure.  He  stole  nothing  himself,  but  he  enabled  others 
to  steal  with  great  freedom.  His  power  rested  mainly  upon  his 
standing  as  a  good  Catholic.  Connected  by  marriage  with  the 
very  head  of  the  church  in  this  country,  he  was  able  to  command 
that  blind  obedience  of  his  followers  which  exists  only  within 
the  pale  of  the  church.  ...  He  had  a  lecture  upon  some  topic 
of  church  interest  which  he  delivered  in  aid  of  all  kinds  of  the 
Church's  charities.  .  .  . 

Two  years  later  another  happy  ending  crowned  the 
famous  three-cornered  campaign  between  Theodore 
Roosevelt  (Rep.),  Henry  George  (Labor),  and  Abram 
S.  Hewitt  (United  Democrat) — the  choice  of  Hewitt. 
The  Evening  Post  was  surprised  when  Tammany  joined 
with  the  County  Democracy  behind  Hewitt,  a  man  of  the 
highest  reputation.  The  Times  and  Tribune  supported 
Roosevelt,  but  Mr.  Godkin  contended  that  he  could  not 
be  elected,  and  that  every  vote  for  him  simply  gave  a 
larger  chance  of  victory  to  Henry  George.  He  was  justi- 
fied by  the  result,  Hewitt  polling  90,552  votes,  George 
68,110,  and  Roosevelt  only  60,435.  I"  1884  the  Post 
had  first  published  a  "Voters'  Directory,"  short  biograph- 
ical sketches  of  the  candidates,  and  its  characterizations 
of  the  three  party  leaders  this  autumn  are  still  of  interest: 


GODKIN'S  WAR  UPON  TAMMANY      479 

ABRAM  S.  HEWITT  (United  Dem.)— Has  served  con- 
tinuously in  Congress,  with  the  exception  of  one  term,  since  1874; 
is  a  large  iron  manufacturer,  and  is  distinguished  for  his  generous 
dealing  with  his  employees;  is  a  high  authority  upon  politico-eco- 
nomic subjects,  and  a  thoroughly  trained  public  man  in  all 
respects ;  declares  that  he  was  nominated  without  pledges.  .  .  . 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  (Rep.)— Is  twenty-eight  years 
of  age ;  served  three  terms  in  the  Assembly,  where  he  was  of  great 
service  in  securing  reform  legislation  for  this  city;  it  was  through 
his  labors  at  the  head  of  a  committee  of  investigation  that  the 
"fee  system"  was  abolished  and  other  evils  exposed  and  corrected ; 
he  went  to  the  Chicago  Convention  openly  and  strongly  opposed 
to  Mr.  Blaine's  nomination  because  of  his  bad  personal  record, 
but  subsequently  consented  to  support  him. 

HENRY  GEORGE  (Labor.)— Is  best  known  as  the  author 
of  "Progress  and  Poverty,"  of  which  the  leading  idea  is  that  all 
property  should  be  confiscated  by  the  State  through  the  taxing 
power,  without  compensation  to  the  owners;  is  the  candidate  of 
Socialists,  boycotters,  etc.;  has  declared  since  his  nomination  that 
if  he  were  elected  "there  would  be  no  more  policemen  acting  as 
censors,"  that  he  "will  loosen  the  bonds  of  the  police  and  make 
them  servants  of  the  people" ;  that  the  horse  cars  "ought  to  be  as 
free  as  air"  to  the  public;  and  that  the  "French  Revolution  is 
about  to  repeat  itself  here." 

Unfortunately,  in  1888  Hewitt  was  defeated  by  the 
old  Tammany  favorite,  ''Hughie"  Grant,  and  the  cor- 
ruptionists  returned  to  their  former  power  and  spoils. 
Worst  of  all.  Grant's  election  was  accepted  without  alarm, 
and  even  with  satisfaction,  by  the  educated  classes.  The 
new  Mayor,  an  Ignorant  and  unprincipled  son  of  a  saloon- 
keeper, was  given  "social  recognition,"  aslced  to  dinner 
in  the  best  circles,  and  opened  a  ball  with  Mrs.  Astor. 
When  he  said,  "If  I  don't  prove  a  good  Mayor,  it  will 
be  because  I  don't  know  how,"  this  remark  was  repeated 
as  If  It  were  a  gem  of  aphoristic  wisdom.  Harper^s 
Weekly,  which  with  the  help  of  the  cartoonist  Nast  had 
done  so  much  to  drive  Tweed  from  power,  yielded  to  this 
folly,  and  (July  13,  1889)  published  a  long  article  ex- 
tolling a  "New  Tammany,"  with  high  alms,  which  it  said 
was  governed  by  a   "big   four"   consisting  of   Richard 


48d  THE  EVENING  POST 

Croker,  Mayor  Grant,  Thomas  F.  Gilroy,  and  Bourke 
Cockran.  The  article  declared  that  Croker  was  pre- 
eminent for  "his  political  sagacity,  political  honesty, 
great  knowledge  of  individuals,  and  spotless  personal 
integrity."  It  described  Grant  as  "well-educated," 
"shrewd  and  far-seeing,"  remarkable  for  "personal  hon- 
esty and  trustworthiness,"  and  "entirely  fearless."  Gil- 
roy was  praised  as  "a  genial,  pleasant,  obliging  man," 
who  was  "remarkably  gifted  with  business  ability."  In 
short,  the  brilliancy  and  integrity  of  Tammany  were  pic- 
tured as  startling. 

Every  one  at  the  time  was  thinking  of  the  projected 
World  Columbian  Exposition,  and  many  New  Yorkers 
were  bent  upon  making  Central  Park  or  some  other  part 
of  the  city  its  site.  Mayor  Grant  lost  no  opportunity  to 
increase  his  prestige  by  frequent  conferences  upon  the 
subject  with  admiring  business  men. 

Watching  this  madness  with  disgust,  as  the  year  1890 
— that  of  another  city  election — opened,  the  Evening  Post 
resolved  to  make  a  stand  against  it  even  if  it  had  to  do  so 
single-handed.  It  had-  never  ceased  to  maintain  that 
Mayor  Grant  was  illiterate,  that  all  his  associations  from 
youth  up  had  been  low,  that  his  administration  as  sheriff 
had  been  so  loose  and  corrupt  that  a  grand  jury  had  re- 
buked it  by  a  scathing  presentment,  and  that  his  appoint- 
ments had  been  wretched.  The  men  he  put  in  office  were 
of  the  worst  Tammany  type.  Moreover,  it  ridiculed  the 
idea  that  there  could  be  a  "New  Tammany,"  arguing  that 
the  character  of  the  organization  made  it  impossible  for 
it  to  change  without  committing  suicide;  that  it  neces- 
sarily drew  its  support  from  the  criminal  and  semi-crim- 
inal population  of  the  city,  and  from  levies  upon  vice,  so 
that  if  this  were  cut  off  it  would  wither.  "The  society," 
wrote  Godkin,  "is  simply  an  organization  of  clever  ad- 
venturers, most  of  them  in  some  degree  criminal,  for  the 
control  of  the  ignorant  and  vicious  vote  of  the  city  in  an 
attack  upon  the  property  of  the  taxpayers.  There  is  not 
a  particle  of  politics  in  the  concern  any  more  than  in  any 
combination  of  Western  brigands  to  'hold  up'  a  railroad 


GODKIN'S  WAR  UPON  TAMMANY     481 

train  and  get  the  express  packages.  Its  sole  object  Is  J 
plunder  in  any  form  which  will  not  attract  immediate^ 
notice  from  the  police." 

How  could  this  fact  be  pressed  home  to  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  citizens?  Mr.  Godkin,  Horace  White,  Joseph 
Bucklin  Bishop,  and  the  managing  editor  resolved  upon 
a  thorough-going  biographical  exposure  of  the  real  char- 
acter of  the  men  who  constituted  Tammany.  They  felt 
that  while  decent  New  Yorkers  knew  In  a  general  way 
that  some  of  the  district  leaders  and  their  henchmen  were 
low  in  character  and  morals,  they  did  not  appreciate  just 
how  noisome  was  the  gulf  of  boodle,  vice,  ignorance,  and 
crime  out  of  which  these  men  emerged.  They  determined 
to  probe  that  gulf,  to  give  the  city  a  whiff  of  Its  fumes, 
and  to  show  how  the  Tammany  organizers  reeked  with 
Its  slime. 

On  April  3,  1890,  therefore,  the  Evening  Post  pub- 
lished In  nine  columns  of  close  print  biographical  sketches 
of  the  twenty-seven  members  of  the  Tammany  Executive 
Committee,  Including  the  "big  four"  of  the  "New  Tam- 
many." This  document,  which  In  ensuing  months  sold  In 
tens  of  thousands  of  copies  as  a  pamphlet.  Is  a  perma- 
nently valuable  contribution  to  New  York's  political  and 
social  history.  It  abounds  In  a  miscellany  of  roguery  rich 
enough  to  outfit  a  picaresque  novelist.  At  the  head  of  the 
list  came  Mayor  Grant,  whom  the  Post  accused  of  divid- 
ing, while  sheriff,  Illegal  fees  with  an  auctioneer  aggre- 
gating $42,497,  and  of  taking  illegal  "extra  compensa- 
tion" fees.  Under  the  name  of  John  Scannell,  the  Post 
printed  details  of  the  murder  which  this  district  leader 
had  committed  In  a  basement  poolroom,  and  showed  how 
he  had  planned  it^ for  two  years,  though  he  was  acquitted 
on  the  ground  of  "emotional  Insajiity."  Another  district  ^ 
leader  was  shown  to'Fe^n  accused  murderer,  and  several 
more  to  have  committed  notoriously  brutal  assaults.  A 
scandal  in  certain  asphalt  contracts  let  by  Thomas  F. 
Gilroy,  now  the  Commissioner  of  Public  Works,  had  al- 
ready been  exposed  by  the  Post,  and  the  facts  were  re- 
peated.   Several  committeemen  were  declared  at  one  time 


482  THE  EVENING  POST 

to  have  received  stolen  goods,  and  several  more  to  have 
kept  disorderly  houses.  .  The  newspaper  described  a 
saloon  once  kept  by  "Barney"  Martin,  one  of  Grant's  ap- 
pointees, as  the  resort  for  the  most  distinguished  pro- 
fessors of  the  art  of  acquiring  other  people's  property 
in  the  country. 

Written  with  sparkle  and  gusto,  these-  biographical 
sketches  abound  in  interesting  anecdotes.  The  biography 
of  "Georgie"  Plunkett  tells  us  that  a  friend  remarked: 
"You  say  Georgie  is  rich?  He  ought  to  be;  he  never 
missed  an  opportunity."  We  are  told  that  H.  D.  Pur- 
roy's  secessionist  element  in  Tammany  was  known  as  the 
Hoy  Purroy.  The  sketch  of  John  Reilly  states  that  he 
had  been  nominated  for  Assistant  Alderman  while  still 
living  in  Ireland,  through  the  efforts  of  "me  brother 
Barney,"  a  Manhattan  saloonkeeper.  It  was  recalled 
that  when  a  protest  had  been  made  to  Sheriff  Grant  by 
his  friends  against  the  appointment  of  "Barney"  Martin 
to  some  post.  Grant  had  made  an  indignant  reply:  "What 
do  youse  fellows  want?  Do  yez  want  to  break  up  the 
organization?"  Summing  up,  the  Evening  Post  listed  the 
Executive  Committee  as  follows: 

Professional  politicians,  27 ;  convicted  murderer,  i ;  acquitted 
of  murder,  i ;  convicted  of  felonious  assault,  i ;  professional  gam- 
blers, 4 ;  former  dive-keepers,  5 ;  liquor  dealers,  4 ;  former  liquor- 
dealers,  5 ;  sons  of  liquor-dealers,  3 ;  former  pugilists,  3 ;  former 
toughs,  4;  members  of  Tweed  gang,  6;  officeholders,  17. 

The  sensation  produced  by  this  publication  was  pro- 
found. Within  a  few  days  the  Evening  Post  reprinted 
dehghted  comments  from  half  of  the  important  news- 
papers of  the  East.  As  for  Tammany,  its  disturbance  and 
outcry  led  Godkin  to  compare  the  inquiry  by  the  news- 
paper with  the  introduction  of  a  ferret  into  a  cellar.  You 
knew  the  rats  were  there,  but  until  the  ferret  appeared 
you  didn't  know  where.  "When  they  become  aware  of  his 
presence  out  they  scuttle,  from  the  coal  hole,  the  ash 
barrel,  the  garbage  can,  the  woodpile,  brown  and  black, 
big  and  little,  squealing  and  showing  their  teeth,"     The 


GODKIN'S  WAR  UPON  TAMMANY     483 

three  things  a  Tammany  leader  most  dreaded,  he  con- 
cluded, were,  In  the  ascending  order  of  repulslveness,  the 
penitentiary,  honest  Industry,  and  biography. 

Immediately  two  of  the  men  favored  with  biographies 
began  suits  for  criminal  libel.  One  was  "Barney"  Mar- 
tin, the  other  Judge  "Pete"  MItchel,  who  had  been  de- 
scribed by  the  Evening  Post  as  a  "nominal"  lawyer,  a 
"thug,"  a  "tough,"  and  a  one-time  adviser  In  a  keno  game. 
Bourke  Cockran,  their  voluble  attorney,  known  for  his 
eloquence  as  the  Tammany  Chrysostom,  began  what  God- 
kin  called  "a  minatory  flux  like  the  rush  of  Croton  through 
a  water-gate."  The  Evening  Post^s  answer  to  the  libel 
suits  was  to  add  two  more  counts  to  Its  charges  against 
"Pete"  MItchel,  saying  that  at  one  time  he  had  received 
stolen  goods  and  at  another  had  been  a  partner  In  a  rum- 
shop  with  a  murderer  named  Sharkey.  Within  a  week 
(April  29)  the  grand  jury  dismissed  the  two  suits  against 
the  Post,  evidence  of  the  unassailable  solidity  of  its 
charges.  Once  more  there  was  an  outburst  of  congratula- 
tion from  the  press  of  the  country,  the  paper  in  one  Issue 
reprinting  editorials  from  other  journals  In  Boston,  Pitts- 
field,  Springfield,  Philadelphia,  Wilmington,  Portland, 
Me.,  and  Milwaukee. 

While  these  suits  were  pending  (one  was  soon  after 
revived,  and  four  in  all  were  vainly  brought)  Tammany 
did  its  utmost  to  make  them  an  annoyance  to  Mr.  Godkin, 
serving  summons  after  summons  at  the  most  Inconvenient 
hours  possible.  He  was  arrested  three  times  In  one  day, 
to  the  great  delight  of  Dana.  But  only  once  did  his 
persecutors  really  succeed  in  vexing  him.  A  policeman 
came  with  a  summons  at  an  early  hour  one  Sunday  morn- 
ing, when  Mr.  Godkin  was  looking  after  the  welfare  of 
some  guests.  With  characteristic  impulsiveness,  he  gave 
the  officer  $5  to  leave  and  come  back  a  little  later.  His 
enemies  at  once  saw  their  opportunity.  Godkin  the  re- 
former bribing  an  officer  of  the  law  to  evade  arrest  I 
Next  morning,  when  he  came  down  to  work  and  found  his 
associates  somewhat  staggered  by  the  printed  reports,  he 
was  puzzled,  and  did  not  really  understand  the  situation 


484  THE  EVENING  POST 

until  he  lunched  with  some  other  reform  workers  at  noon. 
But  of  course  an  explanation  was  easily  given  the  public. 
The  Evening  Post  hastened  to  follow  up  its  first 
biographies  with  an  exposure  of  the  Tammany  Commit- 
tee on  Organization,  numbering  1,070  members,  of  whom 
it  found  161  to  be  rumsellers,  133  criminal  rumsellers 
(that  is,  open  after  hours  or  on  Sundays),  and  235  with- 
out specified  occupation  or  not  in  the  city  directory,  a 
suspicious  circumstance,  since  professional  gamblers  never 
had  an  assigned  occupation.  In  the  weeks  just  before 
election  there  was  published  a  searching  examination  of 
the  Tammany  General  Committee,  numbering  4,564  men, 
of  whom  no  fewer  than  654  were  rumsellers,  565  crim- 
inal rumsellers,  and  1,266  not  in  the  directory,  most  of 
them  for  good  reasons.  Detailed  biographies  of  the  most 
despicable  committeemen  were  printed,  of  which  one  of 
the  shortest  may  be  extracted: 

ELEVENTH  DISTRICT.— Classed  among  the  rumsellers 
of  this  district  is  August  Heckler,  familiarly  known  as  "Gus." 
While  the  nominal  proprietor  of  the  rumshop  called  "The  Bohe- 
mia" at  No.  1257  Broadway,  he  recently  obtained  much  notoriety 
by  turning  the  upper  stories  of  the  building  into  what  for  the 
sake  of  decency  is  called  by  him  a  hotel.  For  this  his  liquor 
license  was  taken  away,  and  so  far  as  can  be  learned  there  are 
now  no  intoxicating  liquors  sold  on  the  premises.  The  hotel, 
which  is  a  most  disorderly  house,  still  flourishes,  however,  while 
Heckler  is  "on  the  road"  selling  a  brand  of  champagne.  Tech- 
nically, Heckler  cannot  be  classed  among  the  criminal  rumsellers; 
yet  he  is  a  good  deal  worse  than  most  of  them. 

Heckler  made  a  personal  call  upon  Mr.  Godkin,  and 
assured  him  that  his  hotel  was  respectable,  whereupon 
the  editor  called  in  the  efficient  reporters  who  gathered 
material  for  the  biographies,  and  proved  that  it  was  not. 

So  far  as  that  fall's  election  went,  the  Evening  Pastes 
labors  were  in  vain.  Because  30,000  registered  Repub- 
licans, jealous  of  the  reform  Democrats,  stayed  from  the 
polls.  Mayor  Grant  beat  the  anti-Tammany  nominee, 
Francis  M.  Scott,  by  a  vote  of  116,000  to  94,000.  Not 
only  that,  but  two  years  later,  in  1892,  Thomas  F.  Gilroy, 


GODKIN'S  WAR  UPON  TAMMANY     485 

called  "a  business  candidate,"  was  easily  elected  to  suc- 
ceed Grant.  Before  his  term  was  well  advanced  it  was 
generally  admitted  that  Tammany  had  become  so  well 
entrenched  behind  the  offices  that  It  would  be  useless  to 
elect  a  reform  Mayor  without  legislation  which  would 
enable  him  to  dismiss  nearly  all  the  city  officials. 

Nevertheless,  the  spade-work  of  Mr.  Godkin  had  been 
so  well  done  that  the  idea  of  a  ''New  Tammany"  was 
now  laughed  at,  and  the  organization  was  regarded  with 
thorough  suspicion  by  decent  elements.  His  campaign 
in  1890  brought  him  letters  from  Eastman  Johnson, 
Bishop  Potter,  S.  G.  Ward,  Charles  Loring  Brace,  Gen. 
Wm.  F.  Smith,  and  other  public-spirited  men.  The  city 
began  to  awake.  Other  newspapers,  notably  the  World 
early  in  1894,  imitated  the  Post  by  publishing  Tammany - 
biographies  which  stung  the  grafters  to  the  quick.  On 
April  4,  1892,  the  City  Club  was  organized  with  a  Board 
of  Trustees  which  Included  men  deeply  interested  in  the 
reformation  of  the  city  government,  the  most  prominent 
being  James  C.  Carter,  R.  Fulton  Cutting,  W.  Bayard 
Cutting,  August  Belmont,  and  William  J.  Schieffelin. 
With  the  special  encouragement  of  the  City  Club,  more 
than  two-score  local  Good  Government  Clubs  were 
shortly  founded  (Carl  Schurz  helped  establish  one  among 
the  German- Americans)  and  although  Dana  of  the  Sun 
contemptuously  nicknamed  them  "Goo-Goos,"  they  ex- 
erted an  important  educational  influence.  There  was 
ample  basis  for  suspicion  of  the  city  rulers  under  both 
Grant  and  Gllroy.  Mayor  Grant  had  sworn  In  1888  that 
two  years  earlier  Croker  was  "very  poor  Indeed."  But 
by  the  end  of  1893  he  had  invested  $250,000  in  a  stock- 
farm,  $103,000  in  race-horses,  $80,000  in  a  Fifth  Avenue 
mansion,  and  drove  about  In  carriages  costing  $1,700. 
The  Post  further  stated  that  Croker  paid  $12,000  a  year 
to  a  jockey,  and  $5,000  to  the  manager  of  his  stock  farm, 
and  that  on  a  trip  to  the  Pacific  Coast  early  in  1894  he 
made  the  journey  in  a  private  car  costing  $50  a  day. 
Where  did  he  get  the  money?  Godkin  harped  continually 
upon   the    outrageous    appointments    made   under   both 


486  THE  EVENING  POST 

Mayors.  Thus  when  In  December,  1890,  Patrick  DIvver 
was  appointed  a  police  justice  at  $8,000  a  year,  the  Post 
reprinted  his  biography : 

PATRICK  DIVVER.— Commonly  called  "Paddy,"  is  the 
Tammany  leader  in  the  Second  Assembly  District.  He  is  the 
keeper  of  a  sailors'  boarding  house,  and  is  the  proprietor,  or  has 
interests,  in  several  liquor  saloons.  He  is  an  ex-member  of  the 
Board  of  Aldermen,  a  race-track  frequenter,  and  the  friend  and 
confidant  of  gamblers.  He  is  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  "Johnny" 
Matthews  and  "Jake"  Shipsey,  two  members  of  the  sporting  and 
gambling  fraternity,  whose  particular  methods  of  gaining  a 
livelihood  are  unknown  to  the  frequenters  of  Paddy  Divver's  and 
other  rumshops  on  Park  Row,  where  they  are  generally  to  be 
found. 

Within  three  years,  said  the  Post  In  1894,  DIvver  was 
reputed  to  be  worth  $200,000.  Among  the  many  other 
unfit  appointments  were  those  of  "Barney"  Martin,  "Joe" 
Koch,  and  "Tom"  Graham  to  the  police  courts,  and  of 
"Mike"  Daly,  John  J.  Scannell,  and  "Andy"  W^hlte  to 
Important  municipal  offices.  In  1892-93  the  Evening 
Post,  Times,  and  World  repeatedly  challenged  the  meth- 
ods of  conducting  the  public  business  In  the  Building  De- 
partment, Dock  Department,  and  Street  Cleaning  Bureau, 
and  In  the  latter  part  of  1893  the  City  Club  began  collect- 
ing evidence  of  corruption  from  top  to  bottom  In  the 
Police  Department.  This  corruption.  Indeed,  was  almost 
a  matter  of  common  knowledge,  for  repeated  charges 
were  made  against  police  captains,  and  the  bipartisan 
Police  Commission  of  four  shielded  the  men  In  the  most 
audacious  way.  The  Insurrection  of  virtue,  as  Theodore 
Roosevelt  called  It,  reached  a  head  during  1 892-1 893  In 
the  charges  of  Dr.  Charles  H.  Parkhurst,  minister  of  the 
Madison  Square  Presbyterian  Church,  that  the  police 
system  was  battening  upon  an  extensive  blackmail  system. 
The  response  was  Immediate;  business  men  and  others 
came  to  Dr.  Parkhurst  with  evidence  that  was  Incontest- 
able ;  the  City  Club  began  demanding  an  Investigation  by 
the  Legislature;  and  Harper^ s  Weekly,  which  had  de- 
fended Tammany  a  few  years  earlier,  published  early  in 


GODKIN'S  WAR  UPON  TAMMANY     487 

January,  1894,  a  cartoon  which  recalled  Nast  In  the 
Tweed  days.  Entitled  "Tammany's  Tax  on  Crime,"  it 
showed  a  line  of  saloon-keepers,  criminals  and  prostitutes 
passing  before  a  cashier's  desk  in  which  stood  the  dummy 
figure  of  a  policeman,  with  Boss  Croker  crouching  behind 
it  and  stretching  forth  his  hand  for  the  "contributions." 
From  the  public  uproar  grew  the  Lexow  Inquiry. 

For  Mr.  Clarence  Lexow,  the  Senator  who  offered  at 
Albany  the  resolution  for  an  investigating  committee  and 
became  its  chairman,  the  Evening  Post  had  no  respect. 
It  called  him  "a  young  country  lawyer  of  very  moderate 
abilities  residing  at  Nyack,  N.  Y.,  and  dabbling  more  or 
less  in  politics  under  the  guidance  of  the  rather  mediocre 
understanding  of  Mr.  T.  C.  Piatt,"  and  it  believed  his 
interest  in  the  inquiry  was  as  lukewarm  as  Piatt's  own. 
But  it  earnestly  supported  the  movement  for  the  inquiry, 
was  disappointed  when  the  committee  failed  to  secure 
Choate  for  counsel,  and,  when  Gov.  Flower  vetoed  the  ap- 
propriation of  $25,000  for  its  work  on  the  ground  that  it 
was  a  partisan  body,  said  that  it  knew  no  precedent  for 
such  a  gross  abuse  of  the  executive  power  save  Gov.  Hill's 
veto  of  the  appropriation  for  the  similar  Fassett  Com- 
mittee. The  State  Chamber  of  Commerce  came  to  the 
rescue  by  advancing  $17,500  to  cover  the  committee's  ex- 
penses, and  John  W.  Goff,  assisted  by  Frank  Moss  and 
Wm.  Travers  Jerome,  proved  an  admirable  counsel. 

By  the  middle  of  June,  1894,  the  inquiry  had  driven 
one  of  the  four  Police  Commissioners,  John  McClave,  to 
resignation  and  flight.  It  had  been  disclosed  that  the 
police  force  had  a  well-determined  tariff  of  charges  for 
its  protection  of  various  criminal  trades  and  practices 
within  the  city.  Each  disorderly  house  was  expected  to 
pay  an  "initiation  fee"  of  $500  to  every  new  police  cap- 
tain placed  in  charge  of  the  district,  and  $50  a  month 
thereafter,  besides  a  contribution  to  the  captain's  "Christ- 
mas present."  One  keeper  of  such  a  house  testified  that 
he  had  been  charged  $750  within  three  months.  Concert 
saloons,  without  a  city  license,  had  to  pay  $50  a  month 
to  the  captain,  while  the  regular  tariff  for  saloons  em- 


488  THE  EVENING  POST 

ploying  waitresses,  and  operating  without  a  license,  ran 
from  $15  to  $25  a  month.  It  Is  not  surprising  that  the 
fact  was  elicited  that  one  captain  had  paid  $15,000  for 
appointment  to  his  post.  For  the  privilege  of  selling  on 
Sunday  all  saloons  regularly  paid  the  ward  men — the 
name  then  given  a  petty  officer — $5.  Whenever  the  In- 
spector of  the  excise  department  found  a  saloon  without 
a  city  license,  he  got  $5  for  overlooking  the  fact.  Tickets 
to  Tammany  "chowder  parties,"  usually  distributed 
among  disorderly  houses  and  saloons  In  blocks  of  five, 
were  $5  each,  and  It  was  gross  bad  manners  to  send  any 
back.  The  push-cart  men  were  expected  to  pay  $3  a 
week  from  their  pitiful  earnings,  and  the  ward-men  had 
miscellaneous  sources  of  tribute  which  made  an  appoint- 
ment to  the  force  worth  $300. 

Every  steamship  line  landing  cargoes  at  the  port  had 
to  pay  heavy  blackmail  charges  at  every  stage  of  Its  busi- 
ness, and  to  every  official — police,  dock,  and  custom- 
house— connected  with  Tammany.  The  agent  of  the 
French  Line  displayed  pitiable  embarrassment  when 
called  upon  to  explain  an  Item  of  $500  ^'payes  a  qui  le 
droit."  All  merchants  who  wished  to  use  the  sidewalks 
to  display  or  handle  goods  paid  $25  to  $50  annually,  it 
being  customary  to  put  this  In  an  envelope  and  leave  it 
somewherje  to  be  called  for.  Men  who  rented  their  prem- 
ises for  polling  booths  had  to  divide  the  money  with  the 
police.  But  much  worse  than  such  grafting  as  this  was 
the  evidence  that  the  police,  instead  of  repressing  pure 
criminality,  were  actually  encouraging  It  as  a  source  of 
revenue.  Thus  green-goods  swindlers  were  allowed  to  do 
business  on  payment  of  $50  a  month  to  the  police  cap- 
tain, policy-gamblers  had  the  same  privilege,  and  receivers 
of  stolen  goods  shared  with  the  detectives.  As  a  climax, 
to  quote  the  Post,  "Mr.  Goff  showed  us  a  police  justice 
sitting  on  the  bench,  and  not  merely  shielding  a  regular 
practitioner  of  abortion  from  punishment,  but  conniving 
with  him  in  his  guilt." 

The  news  pages,  following  the  Inquiry  closely,  showed 


GODKIN'S  WAR  UPON  TAMMANY     489 

how  the  early  bravado  of  the  police  force  changed  within 
a  few  weeks  to  panic : 

That  which  has  altered  the  feelings  of  the  police  [wrote  a 
reporter  June  16]  is  the  fact  that  the  committee  has  entered  re- 
cesses of  the  corruption  system  which  were  believed  to  be  unap- 
proachable. So  long  as  the  despised  lowest  class  of  criminals  was 
the  one  drawn  upon  for  witnesses,  there  was  felt  little  alarm.  It 
was  reasoned  that  the  records  of  the  persons  sworn  would  crush 
the  force  of  their  testimony.  .  .  .  But  when  the  ''better  class" 
women  and  the  professional  criminal,  like  George  Appo,  began  to 
squeal,  danger  was  foreseen.  Women  in  the  "tenderloin"  and 
other  more  pretentious  districts  have  been  treated  fairly  from  a 
police  standpoint.  Where  they  have  paid  for  protection  they  got 
it,  or,  according  to  the  blackmailers,  are  supposed  to  have  received 
it.  If  there  was  any  abuse  of  the  police  power  it  was  not  author- 
ized, and  must  have  been  the  indiscretion  of  the  wardman  or  the 
individual  patrolman.  It  was  meant  that  the  "ladies,"  as  they 
are  uniformly  called,  should  be  justly  and  squarely  dealt  with. 
An)rway,  it  is  a  shock  to  the  guilty  to  learn  that  women  like  "Eva 
Bell,"  who  has  been  protected  for  years  in  Thirty-sixth  Street, 
should  give  the  game  away  and  peach  as  she  did  on  Friday. 

Worse  than  the  fickleness  of  the  women  is  the  weakening  of 
the  criminal  and  the  gambler  to  the  men  who  watch  such  lines 
of  defense  give  way.  Appo,  it  is  said,  however,  has  been  ill- 
treated,  has  a  grievance,  and  these  are  taken  in  account  as  reasons 
for  his  having  "thrown  down"  his  fellows. 

Mr.  Godkin  insisted  that  the  source  of  the  corruption 
was  in  the  higher  ranks  of  the  Tammany  hierarchy,  and 
In  the  Impracticable  administration  of  the  police  by  a 
bipartisan  board  of  four  Instead  of  a  single  Commis- 
sioner. The  reporters  declared  that  the  best  elements  of 
the  force  also  held  Its  heads  to  blame: 

These  men  complain  chiefly  that  the  political  phase  of  the  mat- 
ter is  not  more  urgently  bored  into.  They  say  that  the  conduct 
of  the  commissioners  for  years  has  been  such  as  to  poison  a  patrol- 
man from  the  time  he  first  applies  for  admission  to  the  force.  The 
payment  for  appointment,  the  reputation  of  the  politicians  in  the 
Board,  the  uses  made  of  him  by  his  executive  superiors  in  their 
private  schemes,  and  by  the  Commissioners,  directly  and  indirectly, 
for  their  partisan  purposes,  together  with  the  general  moral  tone 


490  THE  EVENING  POST 

of  the  force  and  the  work,  all  tend  to  teach  him  how  he  is  to  do 
for  himself  when  he  can.  There  ...  is  daily  disappointment  that 
the  higher  evils  are  not  kept  in  view. 


So  far  as  Immediate  remedial  legislation  was  con- 
cerned, the  Lexow  Inquiry  produced  less  effect  than  had 
been  hoped.  Boss  Piatt  controlled  the  Republican  Legis- 
lature, and  had  a  strong  Influence  upon  Gov.  Levi  P. 
Morton,  who  succeeded  Flower;  and  Piatt  declared  that 
to  put  the  police  under  a  single  Commissioner  would  be 
"revolution."  When  the  Committee  made  Its  report  In 
January,  1895,  the  Evening  Post  joined  with  Dr.  Park- 
hurst  In  ridiculing  its  recommendations,  which  Included 
retention  of  the  bipartisan,  four-headed  Police  Commis- 
sion. Godkin  drew  a  scathing  picture  of  Lexow  as  he 
"sneaked  off  to  Piatt's  express  office,  and  engaged  In  a 
dirty  little  Intrigue  for  the  defeat  of  the  reform  move- 
ment, and  tossed  his  little  head  In  the  air  and  sniffed  at 
all  the  leading  men  In  the  city,  and  abused  reformers  In 
general,  and  went  to  work  under  Piatt's  direction  to  con- 
coct a  few  little  bills  to  secure  for  Piatt  a  few  little 
offices."  The  Legislature  refused  to  put  the  police  under 
a  single  head.  It  passed  enactments  making  possible  the 
reformation  of  the  police  court  bench,  and  the  reorgani- 
zation of  the  pubhc  school  system,  but  In  other  fields  In 
which  the  reformers  had  expected  changes  It  refused 
to  act. 

The  real  triumph  of  reform  came  In  the  municipal 
election  In  1894.  Tammany,  trying  to  brazen  out  the 
Lexow  revelations,  first  nominated  Nathan  Straus,  one 
of  the  worst  Park  Commissioners  the  city  ever  had,  the 
chief  abettor  In  1892  of  a  scheme  to  ruin  Central  Park 
by  putting  a  race-track  In  It;  but  he  declined,  and  the 
nomination  was  given  "Hughie"  Grant,  who  had  begun 
the  process  of  filling  the  city  offices  with  the  criminals 
and  seml-crlmlnals  who  adorned  them.  The  reform 
Democrats  and  reform  Republicans  held  a  meeting  in 
Madison  Square  Garden  and  selected  a  Committee  of 
Seventy  to  conduct  their  campaign,  this  body  nominating 


GODKIN'S  WAR  UPON  TAMMANY      49 ^ 

William  M.  Strong  for  Mayor  and  John  W.  Goff  for 
Recorder.  Its  choice  struck  the  Evening  Post  as 
admirable,  not  only  because  Strong  was  a  man  of  high 
character,  a  successful  citizen,  and  well  known  to  the 
public,  but  because  he  was  a  Republican.  The  next- 
Governor  and  Legislature,  wrote  Godkin,  with  accurate 
anticipation  of  the  fact,  would  be  Republican,  and  while 
a  Republican  administration  in  New  York  city  might  not 
be  able  to  get  from  Gov.  Morton  and  Boss  Piatt  all  that 
was  desired,  they  would  certainly  get  more  than  any 
Democrat.  "A  Democratic  Mayor  would  probably  not 
be  allowed  to  make  a  single  removal  or  appointment 
except  such  as  came  to  him  under  the  present  Charter, 
and  we  should  continue  to  wallow  In  our  present  quag- 
mire until  the  next  Presidential  election,  and  then  might 
well  bid  farewell  to  all  thought  of  city  reform."  Decent 
citizens  this  time  were  fully  aroused.  They  went  to  the 
polls  in  such  numbers  that,  although  Tammany  mustered 
108,000  votes,  Strong  and  Goff  had  a  majority  of  over 
45,000.  It  was  an  impressive  demonstration,  wrote  Mr. 
Godkin,  of  the  power  of  non-partisanship : 

The  Committee  of  Seventy  have  shown,  more  conspicuously 
than  ever  before,  the  power  which,  even  in  this  city  of  many 
nationalities  and  creeds,  lies  in  the  union  of  good  people.  We 
believe  the  Good  Government  clubs  are  doing  invaluable  work  in 
turning  the  lesson  to  account.  They  are  spreading  the  non-partisan 
(not  bi-partisan)  view  of  city  affairs.  It  is  especially  important 
that  they  should  hammer  it  into  the  brains  of  the  young,  for  the 
men  who  have  conducted  this  campaign  against  Tammany  will 
be  gone  from  the  stage  in  twenty  years,  as  the  men  of  1871  are 
now,  and  in  about  twenty  years  Tammany  regains  its  old 
strength.  Tammany  will  surely  come  again,  unless  young  and 
old  get  into  the  way  of  looking  at  the  city  as  they  look  at  their 
bank,  and  think  no  more  about  the  Mayor's  politics  than  they 
think  about  the  politics  of  the  cashier  who  keeps  their  accounts. 
All  the  well-governed  cities  of  the  world  are  governed  on  this 
business  plan,  all  the  badly  governed  on  the  other. 

The  plan  of  going  down  among  the  rank  and  file  of  Tammany 
with  books  and  pamphlets,  and  University  Settlements,  and  popu- 
lar lectures,  we  know  has  merit.     It  is  a  work  of  humanity  and 


492  THE  EVENING  POST 

civilization  which  is  always  in  order.  But  they  deceive  them- 
selves who  think  the  city  can  be  saved  by  any  such  missionary 
work.  What  Tammany  offers  to  the  ignorant  and  poor  is  always 
something  more  palpable  and  succulent  than  enlightenment,  or 
free  reading  rooms,  or  cheap  coffee.  It  can  never  be  met  and  van- 
quished except  by  union  among  the  honest,  industrious,  and  intel- 
ligent. These  are  now  in  a  majority  and  have  always  been  in  a 
majority.  A  great  commercial  city  like  New  York  could  not 
exist  and  prosper  if  they  were  not  in  a  majority.  Whenever  they 
cease  to  be  in  a  majority,  capital  and  labor  will  both  begin  to 
move  away  from  Manhattan  Island. 

The  splendid  achievements  of  Mayor  Strong's  reform 
administration  need  not  be  rehearsed  in  detail.  Col. 
George  E.  Waring  was  appointed  head  of  the  Street 
Cleaning  Department,  and  before  he  had  been  at  work 
a  fortnight  the  Evening  Post  commented  on  the  change 
he  had  wrought.  When  people  saw  gangs  of  able-bodied 
sweepers  and  shovelers  working  like  Trojans  under 
bosses,  instead  of  groups  of  infirm  and  decrepit  creatures 
leaning  upon  their  Implements  and  talking  politics,  they 
rubbed  their  eyes.  Snow  actually  vanished  over  night; 
trucks  were  no  longer  stabled  In  the  streets  to  shelter 
vice;  and  the  accidents  to  horses  from  nails  and  rubbish 
strikingly  diminished.  Warlng's  most  competent  prede- 
cessor had  cleaned  53  miles  of  street  daily  In  1888, 
whereas  Waring  cleaned  433  miles  from  once  to  five 
times  dally.  Theodore  Roosevelt  was  made  President 
of  the  Police  Commission,  with  results  familiar  to  every 
one.  A  new  Board  of  Education,  after  falling  to  procure 
President  Daniel  Colt  Gllman  of  Johns  Hopkins,  chose 
William  H.  Maxwell  to  be  the  energetic  Superintendent 
of  the  Schools ;  while  In  Mayor  Strong's  first  year  fourteen 
new  school  buildings  were  finished,  and  the  salaries  of 
teachers  were  materially  raised.  The  police  courts  were 
reorganized,  the  Mayor  taking  pains  to  choose  the  best 
magistrates  available.  The  City  College,  cramped  into 
small  quarters  on  Twenty-third  Street,  was  given  an 
adequate  site  on  the  heights  overlooking  Harlem,   the 


GODKIN'S  WAR  UPON  TAMMANY     493 

Metropolitan  Museum  was  enlarged,  bridges  were  built 
over  the  Harlem,  and  the  parks  were  much  more  care- 
fully tended.  The  administration  made  blunders,  but  It 
was  one  of  the  best  New  York  has  ever  had. 

For  this  great  revolt  of  1894  and  Its  fruits,  Mr.  God- 
kin  gave  equal  credit  to  the  foolish  audacity  of  the  Tam- 
many yahoos  and  "the  persistence  and  pluck  with  which 
Dr.  Parkhurst  stuck  to  the  police.  It  was  his  splendid 
bulldog  obstinacy  In  holding  on  to  them  which  really 
made  the  first  clear  Impression  on  the  public  mind."  Dr. 
Parkhurst  will  always  remain  the  hero  of  the  uprising. 
But  many  who  were  foremost  in  the  struggle  thought  at 
the  time  that  Godkin  himself  should  be  bracketed  with 
the  fighting  pastor,  and  publicly  or  privately  said  so. 
Dr.  Parkhurst  just  after  the  election  expressed  his  warm 
gratitude  to  the  editor.  This  was  all  very  well,  wrote 
Col.  George  E.  Waring;  "but  Parkhurst  don't  know,  as 
do  those  who  have  watched  your  course  during  all  the 
years  of  your  work  here,  to  what  an  extent  you  alone  are 
to  be  credited  with  the  maintaining,  among  the  leaders  of 
the  community,  of  the  spirit  which  at  last  made  Parkhurst 
and  his  work  possible.  I  have  known  in  my  short  life  no 
equal  example  of  persistent,  vigorous,  aggressive  virtue 
receiving  the  reward  of  such  crowning  success."  Fred- 
erick Keppel  wrote  In  the  same  terms:  "Both  Dr.  Park- 
hurst and  Mr.  Goff  deserve  the  public  honors  that  have 
been  heaped  upon  them;  but  long  before  these  gentlemen 
were  ever  publicly  heard  of  (and  unfalteringly  ever 
since)  your  journal  has  fought  against  corruption  and 
wrong  with  a  power  and  vigor  which  certainly  has  done 
more  than  any  other  single  influence  to  bring  about  the 
magnificent  result  of  last  election  day."  Wayne  Mac- 
Veagh  and  President  Gilman  expressed  themselves  with 
equal  enthusiasm.  Dr.  W.  R.  Huntington  suggested 
statues  to  Dr.  Parkhurst  and  Mr.  Godkin  overlooking 
Tammany  Hall. 

The  strength  of  this  sentiment  led  a  month  after  the 
election  to  the  presentation  to  Mr.  Godkin  of  a  loving 


494  THE  EVENING  POST 

cup,  the  speech  on  the  occasion  being  delivered  by  Bishop 
Henry  C.  Potter.  The  subscription  was  made  by  a  list 
of  women,  and  the  cup  testified  to  their  "grateful  recog- 
nition of  fearless  and  unfaltering  services  to  the  city  of 
New  York." 

The  two  chief  municipal  issues  in  which  Godkin  was 
interested  after  1894,  the  creation  of  Greater  New  York 
under  a  charter  drafted  in  1896,  and  the  election  of  its 
first  Mayor  in  1897,  both  resulted  in  defeats  for  his 
views.  He  opposed  consolidation  as  premature.  His 
belief  was  that  if  the  separate  governments  of  New  York 
and  Brooklyn  were  both  corrupt,  as  they  had  been  with 
few  intermissions  for  a  long  generation,  their  union  would 
simply  present  a  harder  problem  for  reformers,  and  fat- 
ter jobs  and  more  boodle  for  the  bosses.  Moreover,  he 
knew  that  the  guiding  hand  in  the  formation  of  a  Charter 
Commission  and  the  legislative  approval  of  its  work 
would  be  Piatt's.  But  the  Piatt  and  Croker  machines 
agreed  in  supporting  the  consolidation  programme,  and 
many  of  the  reform  element  stood  behind  it,  so  that  it 
was  easily  made  effective.  The  result  of  the  ensuing 
mayoralty  campaign  of  1897  was  not  long  in  doubt.  On 
the  Tammany  side  there  was  one  candidate,  Robert  Van 
Wyck,  and  opposing  him  there  appeared  three.  The 
Citizens'  Union  was  formed  that  spring,  and  its  efforts 
led  to  the  nomination  of  Seth  Low,  well  known  as  succes- 
sively Mayor  of  Brooklyn  and  President  of  Columbia 
University — an  admirable  choice;  the  Piatt  Republicans 
nominated  Gen.  B.  F.  Tracy;  and  the  Bryan  Democrats 
put  forward  Henry  George.  Van  Wyck  received  233,997 
votes,  while  Low,  his  nearest  rival,  obtained  only 
151,540. 

This  result  seemed  a  stunning  reaction  from  the  great 
victory  of  1894.  Van  Wyck  made  a  clean  sweep  of 
Mayor  Strong's  efficient  departmental  heads,  and  when 
Devery  became  chief  of  police  the  city  ran  "wide  open." 
Yet  in  the  moment  of  defeat  Godkin  did  not  lose  heart, 
pointing  out  that  Van  Wyck's  three  antagonists  combined 


E.    L.    GODKIN 

Associate  Editor  1881-1883,  Editor-in-Chief  1883-1899. 


GODKIN'S  WAR  UPON  TAMMANY      495 

had  a  larger  vote  than  he.  "Four  years  is  a  long  time  to 
wait,  undoubtedly,  for  another  attack  on  Tammany,"  the 
Post  said,  "but  in  those  four  years  Tammany  will  be  fur- 
nishing us  with  plenty  of  ammunition,  and  Republicans 
will  be  seeing  and  thinking,  and  the  Citizens'  Union  will 
be  learning  how  to  fight." 


CHAPTER  TWENTY-THREE 

FREE  SILVER,  THE  SPANISH  WAR,  AND  IMPERIALISM 

The  three  great  final  battles  of  Godkin's  editorship 
were  those  against  the  free  silver  craze,  the  Spanish  War, 
and  the  retention  of  the  Philippines.  The  first  was  de- 
cisively won,  but  the  decisive  loss  of  the  other  two  cast 
a  shadow  over  Mr.  Godkin's  last  days.  "American  ideals 
were  the  intellectuil  food  of  my  youth,  and  to  see  America 
converted  into  a  senseless.  Old  World  conqueror,  embit- 
ters my  age,"  he  wrote  a  friend  in  May,  1899.  In  all 
three  struggles  the  E  "ning  Post  took  the  same  aggres- 
sive leadership  as  In  i  .e  Mugwump  campaigns  against 
Blaine  and  In  Godkin's  fifteen  years  of  war  upon  Tam- 
many. 

The  portents  of  the  free  silver  uprising  first  became 
alarming  to  the  Evening  Post  In  1890.  The  Sherman 
Silver  Purchase  Act  of  that  year  It  roundly  attacked,  and 
Horace  White  and  the  other  editors  always  regarded  it 
as  the  chief  cause  of  the  panic  of  1893.  As  he  pointed 
out,  It  added  nearly  $200,000,000  to  the  fiat  money  of 
the  country,  alarmed  men  at  home  and  abroad  regard- 
ing the  ability  of  the  United  States  to  redeem  its  obliga- 
tions in  gold  upon  demand,  caused  the  steady  withdrawal 
of  capital  from  the  country,  and  decreased  business  con- 
fidence and  increased  money  rates  until  failures  took  place 
on  every  hand.  The  Post's  detestation  of  the  Sherman 
Act  was  Increased  by  the  fact  that  It  was  passed  by  a 
nefarious  combination  of  silver  men  and  supporters  of 
the  McKInley  Tariff,  a  measure  which  the  Post  equally 
abominated.  For  some  years  in  the  nineties  the  silver 
danger  seemed  the  greater  because  Republicans  flirted 
with  it  as  coyly  as  Democrats.  In  1894  both  Speaker 
Reed  and  Senator  Lodge  proposed  to  force  silver  upon 
the  world  by  high  discriminating  tariffs  against  nations 

496 


SPANISH  WAR  AND  SILVER  497 

which  refused  to  adopt  bimetallism.  Lodge,  in  fact,  left 
the  Evening  Post  aghast  by  introducing  a  demagogic 
resolution  in  the  Senate  for  applying  this  policy  against 
England. 

Late  in  1894  the  reception  given  ^'Coin's  Financial 
School"  showed  how  irresistibly  the  free  silver  question 
was  thrusting  itself  into  the  political  foreground.  This 
famous  pamphlet,  by  W.  H.  Harvey,  related  how  a 
"smooth  little  financier"  of  Chicago  named  Coin,  struck 
by  the  rural  distress  and  business  depression,  opened  a 
school  of  finance  in  the  Art  Institute  in  May,  1894.  His 
lectures  and  colloquies  continued  six  days.  At  first  only 
young  men  were  present,  but  the  audience  increased  until 
it  included  statesmen,  professors,  bank  presidents,  and 
others  of  note,  many  of  them — ,us  Lyman  J.  Gage  and 
J.  Laurence  Laughlin — designated  by  name.  When  they 
interrupted  Coin,  he  quickly  silenced  them  by  his  incisive 
logic  and  superior  knowledge.  In  the  end,  completely 
converted,  the  company  tendered  him  a  glittering  recep- 
tion at  the  Palmer  House.  The  pamphlet  was  illustrated 
by  coarse  woodcuts.  One  showed  silver  a  beautiful 
woman  decapitated  by  her  enemies;  another  depicted 
America  as  a  cow  which  the  farmers  were  laboriously 
feeding  while  a  fat  capitalist  milked  her;  a  third  repre- 
sented the  gold  standard  by  a  man  hobbling  on  one  leg. 
Coin  had  made  the  utmost  of  his  ability  to  ask  the  ques- 
tions as  well  as  answer  them.  As  Horace  White  said, 
his  discussion  with  Prof.  Laughlin  was  equaled  by 
nothing  save  the  debate  in  Rabelais  upon  the  question 
whether  a  chimera  ruminating  in  a  vacuum  devoureth 
second  intentions.  The  booklet  was  full  of  deceptive 
analogies.  For  example,  when  asked  if  Government 
coinage  of  depreciated  silver  would  really  make  it  worth 
a  dollar  in  gold.  Coin  replied:  "Certainly;  if  the  Govern- 
ment bought  100,000  horses,  wouldn't  the  price  go  up?" 
This  retort  was  set  off  with  a  woodcut  of  a  horse. 

No  man  in  the  country,  not  even  Prof.  W.  G.  Sumner, 
was  so  well  equipped  to  answer  Coin  as  Horace  White. 
The  "comic  publication,"  as  the  Post  called  it,  would 


498  THE  EVENING  POST 

have  been  unworthy  of  attention  had  its  influence  not 
been  tremendous.  Silver  miners,  mortgage-ridden  farm- 
ers, small  shopkeepers  and  workmen,  were  everywhere 
soon  studying  it,  making  its  specious  arguments  their  own, 
and  convincing  themselves  that  an  Eastern  plutocracy 
had  committed  "the  crime  of  '73" — the  demonetization 
of  silver — in  order  to  depress  the  prices  of  crops  and 
labor.  By  March,  1895,  it  was  impossible  to  ignore  the 
booklet.  In  a  series  of  twelve  articles  Mr.  White  exposed 
its  many  misstatements  and  fallacies.  Coin  asserted  that 
silver  was  "demonetized  secretly"  in  1873,  whereas  the 
discussion  had  been  full  and  open.  He  said  that  the  sil- 
ver dollar  was  the  monetary  unit  of  the  United  States 
1 792-1 873,  when  it  was  actually  so  only  from  1783  to 
1792.  He  stated  that  the  United  States  was  the  first 
nation  to  demonetize  silver,  whereas  Germany  had  closed 
her  mints  to  silver  except  for  small  coins  in  187 1.  As  for 
the  horse-buying  illustration,  Mr.  White  showed  that 
when  in  1890  the  Government  began  buying  4,500,000 
ounces  of  silver  each  month,  the  price  actually  fell  because 
the  supply  increased  also.  He  discussed  in  detail  the 
greenback  question.  Coin's  queer  delusion  that  the  country 
had  never  been  prosperous  since  1873,  and  the  supposed 
"English  octopus"  that  had  fastened  gold  upon  the  world. 
With  some  revision,  his  articles  appeared  early  in  1895 
as  a  pamphlet  entitled  "Coin's  Financial  Fool,"  and  were 
distributed  in  large  numbers  by  the  Reform  Club  at  fifteen 
cents  a  hundred. 

At  the  beginning  of  1896  the  Evening  Post  welcomed 
the  signs  that  a  great  national  battle  over  free  silver  was 
coming.  The  result,  it  predicted,  would  be  the  same  that 
had  crowned  the  greenback  contest.  "A  sharp  division 
between  those  who  want  an  honest  dollar  and  those  who 
do  not  is  on  all  accounts  to  be  desired,"  it  said  on  April 
10.  "A  year's  discussion  of  the  principles  that  enter  into 
this  question  is  the  best  possible  preparation  of  the  public 
mind  for  the  presidential  campaign  of  1896."  It  knew 
that  the  sharp  division  would  have  to  be  a  division  be- 
tween the  two  great  parties.    As  the  isolation  of  Cleve- 


SPANISH  WAR  AND  SILVER  499 

land  and  other  gold  men  in  the  Democrat  party,  and  the 
ascendancy  of  silverltes  like  Bland  and  Tillman,  became 
more  emphatic,  it  frankly  pinned  its  hopes  to  the 
Republicans. 

To  them  it  promised  victory  if  only  they  refused  to 
^'straddle."  An  editorial  of  April,  1896,  called  "Assur- 
ance of  the  Gold  Standard,"  told  them  that  on  a  gold 
platform  they  could  carry  all  the  States  north  of  Dela- 
ware and  the  Ohio  River,  and  east  of  the  Mississippi. 
This  would  give  them  210  electoral  votes,  and  the  ten 
more  needed  could  certainly  be  obtained  from  Iowa,  the 
Dakotas,  and  the  border  States.  Throughout  May  and 
June  the  Evening  Post  called  upon  McKinley,  who  was 
almost  certain  to  be  the  nominee,  to  declare  himself  for 
the  gold  standard.  He  had  voted  for  the  Sherman  Silver 
Purchase  Act,  and  had  made  alarming  utterances  in  favor 
of  silver  coinage  as  late  as  the  fall  of  1894;  hence  the 
editors'  anxiety  over  his  uncertain  position,  and  their 
resentment  of  his  talk  of  making  the  tariff  the  chief  issue. 
But  McKinley  refused  to  commit  himself.  He  was 
assured  of  a  majority  of  the  Republican  Convention  if  he 
acted  tactfully,  and  he  had  no  intention  of  antagonizing 
the  silver  wing  of  his  party  before  he  won  the  prize.  In 
his  speeches  both  before  and  just  after  the  convention  he 
failed  to  allude  to  the  free  silver  issue,  while  in  several 
he  emphasized  the  "great  American  doctrine  of  pro- 
tection." 

McKinley's  nomination  was  therefore  received  by  God- 
kin  and  his  associates  with  hostility.  Not  since  i860,  they 
wrote,  had  the  nation  so  needed  a  man  of  strong  character 
and  clear  views;  yet  the  Republicans  had  chosen  a  trim- 
mer of  uncertain  mental  operations.  The  gold  plank  in 
the  platform  was  admirable,  but  it  simply  emphasized  the 
fact  that  McKinley  was,  at  the  time  he  was  named,  a  total 
misfit.    Nevertheless,  Godkin  tried  to  be  optimistic: 

Nothing  marks  more  clearly  than  McKinley's  nomination  the 
mistake  of  turning  nominating  conventions  into  vast  exciting 
crowds,  doing  their  work  under  the  eyes  of  a  larger  crowd,  more 
excited  still.    There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  gold  in  the  plat- 


500  THE  feVENING  POST 

form  was  forced  on  the  convention  by  the  business  men,  and  that, 
had  the  convention  been  a  deliberative  body,  McKinley's  unfit- 
ness to  stand  on  any  such  platform  would  have  been  recognized. 
But  the  pledges  given  by  the  delegates  before  they  ever  met  or 
compared  notes,  made  it  impossible  to  choose  any  other.  About 
the  platform  they  were  free,  but  about  the  candidate  they  were  tied 
up,  so  that  they  were  compelled  to  put  him  astride  a  body  of  doc- 
trine with  which  he  had  never  been  in  thorough  sympathy.  But 
the  formal  recognition  of  the  doctrine  by  the  party  at  least  insures 
discussion,  and  encourages  us  to  hope  that  there  will  be  no  more 
difficulty  in  killing  the  silver  heresy  through  the  country  by  free 
debate  than  there  has  been  in  getting  such  a  collection  of  politicians 
as  met  at  St.  Louis  to  declare  for  the  gold  standard. 

If  the  Evening  Post  was  frigid  toward  McKinley,  it 
was  filled  with  angry  contempt  by  the  nomination  of 
Bryan.  He  was  totally  unknown  to  the  country  at  large ; 
he  had  not  even  been  a  regular  delegate  to  the  conven- 
tion; he  made  a  windy  speech  to  the  roaring  mob  of 
repudiators  which  called  itself  the  Democratic  party,  and 
was  nominated  because  he  was  of  the  stamp  of  Tillman 
and  Altgeld,  with  a  more  attractive  personality — so  ran 
its  verdict.  The  decadence  of  the  great  party  of  Jackson, 
Benton,  Tilden,  and  Cleveland  seemed  to  it  confirmed  by 
the  platform,  which  Horace  White  pronounced  "baser 
than  anything  ever  avowed  heretofore  by  a  political  party 
in  this  country  outside  of  the  slavery  question."  The  free 
coinage  plank,  he  said,  with  the  silver  dollar  really  worth 
52  cents,  meant  the  repudiation  of  the  half  part  of  all  the 
debts  incurred  since  1872,  when  the  gold  dollar  had  been 
made  the  unit  of  value. 

One  of  the  campaign  achievements  of  the  Evening  Post 
was  truly  spectacular.  Immediately  after  Bryan's  nomi- 
nation its  financial  editor,  Mr.  A.  D.  Noyes,  began  pub- 
lishing a  series  of  editorials  called  "A  Free  Coinage 
Catechism."  This  question-and-answer  presentation  of 
controversial  subjects  was  a  familiar  one  in  the  Evening 
Post  ever  since  Godkin  assumed  control,  but  it  was  never 
more  effectively  used  than  in  July  and  August,  1 896.    Mr. 


SPANISH  WAR  AN6  SILVER  501 

Noyes  slashed  directly  into  the  errors  of  the  Democrats, 
as  a  single  brief  excerpt  will  show : 

Q.  What  is  the  fundamental  contention  of  the  free  coinage 
advocates  ?  A.  That  the  amount  of  money  in  circulation  has  been 
decreasing  since  the  demonetization  of  silver,  and  that  this  de- 
crease has  caused  a  general  fall  in  prices. 

Q.  Is  ft  true  that  the  money  supply  has  been  decreasing?  A. 
It  Is  not. 

Q.  What  are  the  facts?  A.  So  far  as  the  United  States  is  con- 
cerned, there  has  been  an  enormous  increase.  In  i860  the  money 
in  circulation  in  this  country  was  $442,102,477;  in  1872  it  was 
$738,309,549;  by  the  Treasury  bulletin,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
present  month  of  July,  it  was  $1,509,725,200. 

Q.  What  does  this  show?  A.  It  shows  that  our  money  supply 
has  increased  240  per  cent,  as  compared  with  i860,  and  104  per 
cent,  as  compared  with  1872. 

These  editorials  were  Immediately  Issued  by  the  Eve- 
ning Post  in  a  sixteen-page  pamphlet,  and  by  Sept.  4 
a  first  edition  of  1,350,000  copies  had  been  sold.  A 
new  edition  with  two  new  chapters  and  other  additional 
matter  was  then  brought  out,  and  by  Nov.  2  the  total  sale 
had  reached  1,956,000  copies.  Horace  White's  pam- 
phlet, '^Coin's  Financial  Fool,"  continued  to  sell,  and  was 
supplemented  by  the  publication  In  leaflet  form  of  a  public 
address  which  he  had  made  In  Chicago  In  1893  upon  *'The 
Gold  Standard :  How  It  Came  Into  the  World,  and  Why 
It  Will  Stay."  It  can  safely  be  said  that  the  most  impor- 
tant campaign  documents  Issued  In  behalf  of  sound  money 
were  these  by  Mr.  Noyes  and  Mr.  White. 

Less  spectacular,  but  no  less  effective,  were  Horace 
White's  editorials  throughout  the  summer.  As  reprinted 
by  the  Nation,  they  reached  editors  and  other  leaders  of 
opinion  the  land  over,  and  filtered  down  to  the  public  by 
a  thousand  channels.  Godkin  wrote  upon  the  more  gen- 
eral political  aspects  of  the  campaign,  leaving  the  hard 
day-to-day  arguing  mainly  to  Mr.  White.  During  the 
whole  campaign  the  paper  managed  to  attack  Bryan  and 
Democracy  without  open  advocacy  of  McKInley  and  the 
Republican  Party.     When  McKInley  published  his  letter 


502  THE  EVENING  POST 

of  acceptance,  the  Post  wholeheartedly  praised  its  finan- 
cial passages,  and  declared  that  they  defined  the  one  real 
issue  of  the  campaign.  But  its  distaste  for  McKInley's 
personality,  Its  aversion  for  his  high-tariff  views,  and  the 
repugnant  character  of  the  dominant  Republican  leaders 
— Hanna,  Piatt,  Quay,  Lodge,  Frye,  and  others — pre- 
vented it  from  giving  more  than  implied  and  tacit 
approval  to  his  candidacy.  Godkin  himself  voted  the 
Gold  Democratic  ticket. 

The  New  York  press  approached  nearer  to  unanimity 
that  summer  than  in  any  Presidential  campaign  since  the 
era  of  good  feeling.  The  Journal  was  Bryan's  one  im- 
portant supporter.  When  he  was  nominated,  the  World 
turned  its  back  upon  him,  saying:  "Lunacy  having  dictated 
the  platform.  It  was  perhaps  natural  that  hysteria  should 
evolve  the  candidate."  Though  Dana  called  himself  a 
Democrat,  the  Sun  was  more  fervently  anti-Bryan  than 
the  Tribune.  Bryan  called  New  York  "the  heart  of  what 
seems  to  be  the  enemy's  country."  His  attempt  to  Invade 
it  in  mid- August,  when  he  journeyed  1,500  miles  to  Madi- 
son Square  Garden  to  be  notified  of  his  nomination,  was 
a  dismal  failure.  The  night  was  one  of  intense  heat,  the 
notification  speech  of  Gov.  W.  J.  Stone  of  Missouri  was 
intolerably  long,  and  the  very  character  of  Bryan's 
address  was  a  disappointment.  He  had  been  expected  to 
display  the  eloquence^  which  had  so  dazzled  the  Chicago 
Convention.  Instead,  he  read  from  manuscript  a  long 
speech  on  the  model  of  Lincoln's  Cooper  Union  Address, 
dealing  in  the  dry  tone  of  a  student  with  what  he  imagined 
to  be  economic  facts  and  governmental  principles.  Many 
hearers  left  early.  But  the  Post  explained  his  failure,  not 
by  his  refusal  to  attempt  eloquence,  but  by  the  fact  that 
his  dreary  discourse  abounded  in  "the  most  grating  self- 
contradictions,  the  grossest  blunders  In  matters  of  fact, 
the  emptiest  platitudes  and  vaguest  assertions" ;  and  by 
the  fact  that  while  Lincoln  had  appealed  to  national 
honor,  the  young  man  from  the  Platte  argued  "the  cause 
of  private  dishonesty  and  public  disgrace." 

Some  newspapers  indulged  In  downright  ferocity.    The 


SPANISH  WAR  AND  SILVER  503 

Journal  spoke  of  the  plutocrats,  the  monopolists,  the 
great  corporations,  and  their  protector  Hanna,  in  charac- 
teristic Journal  fashion.  The  Tribune  called  Bryan  a 
"wretched,  addle-pated  boy  posing  in  vapid  vanity  and 
mouthing  resounding  rottenness";  a  man  "apt  ...  at 
lies  and  forgeries  and  blasphemies";  a  "puppet  In  the 
blood-Imbued  hands  of  Altgeld,  the  anarchist"  and  of 
others  who  made  up  a  "league  of  hell."  The  Sun 
applauded  the  Yale  students  who  tried  to  break  up  a  New 
Haven  speech  by  Bryan.  Even  the  Post  spoke  in  the 
harshest  tones  of  those  Western  farmers  the  genuineness 
of  whose  hardships  no  one  now  denies,  and  characterizes 
the  struggle  as  one  between  "the  great  civilizing  forces  of 
the  republic"  and  "the  still  surviving  barbarism  bred  by 
slavery  in  the  South  and  the  reckless  spirit  of  adventure  in 
the  mining  camps  of  the  West."  Such  overstatements 
show  how  Intense  was  Eastern  feeling  over  the  election. 
Though  the  Post^s  attitude  toward  McKInley  tempered 
Its  rejoicings  in  the  result,  it  nevertheless  hailed  It  as  "the 
most  impressive  vindication  of  democracy  governing  ac- 
cording to  law  and  order  that  the  country  has  ever  seen." 

II 

The  one  great  doctrine  that  the  Evening  Post  has  main- 
tained as  insistently  as  its  low-tariff  stand  Is  its  opposition 
to  any  artificial  extension  of  American  sovereignty.  From 
Coleman's  protests  against  Jackson's  high-handed  inva- 
sion of  the  Floridas  to  Mr.  Ogden's  protest  against  the 
purchase  of  the  Danish  West  Indies,  this  position  has 
been  unfalteringly  sustained.  Bryant  was  among  the  first 
to  oppose  the  annexation  of  Texas,  denounced  Walker's 
fillbusterers  as  "desperadoes"  and  "pirates,"  and  could 
not  condemn  too  fiercely  the  Southern  projects  for  acquir- 
ing Cuba  in  the  fifties.  When  Seward  purchased  Alaska, 
he  opposed  that  act;  for,  as  he  said,  many  Congressmen 
advocated  it  not  because  they  felt  they  were  getting  any- 
thing of  value,  but  because  it  was  a  blow  at  the  prestige 
of  Great  Britain  and  a  precaution  against  the  growth  of 
her  Pacific  power.    The  basis  of  the  Evening  Post's  scath- 


504  THE  EVENING  POST 

ing  attacks  on  President  Grant's  effort  to  annex  Santo 
Domingo  was  Its  belief  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  rule  of  a 
Latin  and  negro  people  would  be  contrary  to  all  traditions 
of  the  republic,  and  a  complete  evil  for  both  countries. 

The  attitude  of  the  paper  toward  conquest  and  military 
adventure  was  the  same  no  matter  what  country  was  in- 
volved. Bryant  could  never  see  anything  in  the  Crimean 
War  but  a  useless  and  Inexcusable  sea  of  blood  and  misery. 
When  the  threat  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War  first  ap- 
peared, the  Evening  Post  held  that  if  the  ambition  of  the 
French  to  dictate  boundaries  and  sovereigns  to  Europe 
was  to  go  on  retarding  civilization  till  it  met  an  effectual 
check,  now  was  the  time  to  check  it.  Like  every  other 
American  newspaper,  the  Post  had  been  embittered 
against  Napoleon  III  by  his  interference  in  Mexico  and 
other  acts  of  hostility  toward  the  United  States.  The 
receipt  of  the  news  of  Sedan  was  the  signal  for  an  im- 
promptu celebration  In  the  editorial  rooms.  Nevertheless, 
Bryant  and  his  sub-editors  warned  Germany  against  an- 
nexation as  a  "barbarous  custom,"  saying  that  she  should 
let  Napoleon  III  be  the  last  European  ruler  who  aspired 
to  govern  by  force  an  unwilling  and  subjugated  people. 
They  also  warned  her  against  militarism,  which  had  been 
the  curse  of  France.  "It  Is  for  united  Germany  to  say 
that  this  wrong  shall  no  longer  continue ;  and  the  way  to 
say  It  Is  to  disband,  as  soon  as  peace  is  won,  those  huge 
armies  which  have  done  such  mighty  deeds,  and  thus  de- 
clare to  the  world  that  Germany,  like  America,  means 
peace;   and  has  no  fear,  because  it  intends  no  wrong." 

But  if  Bryant  was  always  vigorous  in  denouncing  armed 
aggression,  Godkin  was  always  savage.  His  hatred  of  na- 
tional truculence  colored  his  earliest  public  utterances.  It 
inspired  his  indignant  letters  to  the  London  Daily  News 
upon  the  Trent  Affair  In  1861,  when  the  tone  of  the  Brit- 
ish press  and  Foreign  Office  seemed  to  him  needlessly 
offensive.  The  attitude  he  took  in  the  Nation  toward 
Dominican  annexation  and  the  designs  of  many  Americans 
upon  Cuba  in  the  seventies  was  one  of  trenchant  hostility. 
When  he  became  editor  of  the  Evening  Post,  not  a  year 


.       SPANISH  WAR  AND  SILVER  505 

passed  without  fresh  criticism  of  this  spirit.  His  at- 
tacks upon  British  military  adventures  were  as  freely 
expressed.  When  Gordon  was  killed  at  Khartum,  he 
wrote  with  the  utmost  bitterness  of  the  whole  Sudan 
tragedy — the  British  Jingo  demand  for  destruction  of  the 
Mahdi,  its  collision  with  the  really  admirable  spirit  of 
Arab  nationalism,  the  waste  of  hundreds  of  millions,  the 
death  of  hundreds  of  brave  Britons  and  thousands  of 
brave  Arabs.  "There  is  a  powerful  passage  in  De  Mais- 
tre,  apropos  of  war,"  he  concluded,  "  describing  the  loath- 
ing and  disgust  which  would  be  excited  in  the  human 
breast  by  the  spectacle  of  tens  of  thousands  of  cats  meet- 
ing in  a  great  plain,  and  scratching  and  biting  each  other 
till  half  their  number  were  dead  and  mangled.  To  beings 
superior  to  man,  conflicts  like  this  in  the  Sudan  must  have 
much  the  same  look  of  grotesque  horror." 

By  1894  Mr.  Godkin  was  convinced  that  the  spirit  of 
jingoism  was  growing  more  and  more  rampant  the  world 
over.  The  Continent  was  divided  between  the  Dual  and 
Triple  Alliances.  The  desire  to  grab  territory  had  in- 
fected even  Italy.  That  country  had  emerged  from  the 
struggle  for  unification  one  of  the  poorest  in  Europe,  with 
taxation  at  the  last  limit  of  endurance.  She  badly  needed 
reforms  in  education,  administration,  and  communication. 
Yet  she  hastened  to  establish  an  army  of  600,000,  and  a 
navy  of  a  dozen  battleships,  and  to  hunt  up  some  African 
natives  to  subjugate  like  other  nations.  The  result  of  her 
efforts  to  assume  a  protectorate  over  Abyssinia  was  a 
series  of  defeats,  heavy  loss  in  men,  the  overthrow  of  the 
Crispi  Ministry,  and  reduction  to  the  verge  of  bankruptcy. 
"It  is  no  longer  sufficient  for  a  people  to  be  happy,  peace- 
ful, industrious,  well-educated,  lightly  taxed,"  tauntingly 
wrote  Godkin.  "It  must  have  somebody  afraid  of  it. 
What  does  a  nation  amount  to  if  nobody  is  afraid  of  it? 
Not  a  jico  secco,  as  King  Humbert  would  say."  England 
was  clearly  headed  for  war  in  South  Africa.  But  what 
grieved  Mr.  Godkin  most  was  the  evident  desire  of  many 
Americans,  the  Hearsts  and  Lodges  leading  them,  to  fight 
somebody.     In  February,  1896,  he  wrote  upon  this  phe- 


5o6  THE  EVENING  POST 

nomenon  under  the'  tltl^  "National  Insanity,"  comparing 
it  to  the  recurrent  disposition  of  some  men  to  get  drunk 
in  spite  of  reason. 

After  the  Venezuela  Affair,  the  eagerness  of  these  jin- 
goes for  a  war  turned  toward  Spain  as  an  object.  The 
Cubans  had  renewed  their  revolt  in  February,  1895,  and 
fought  so  well  that  by  the  end  of  the  next  year  they  con- 
trolled three-fourths  of  the  inland  country.  The  cruelty 
of  the  struggle  shocked  Americans,  while  our  heavy  Cu- 
ban investments  and  trade  gave  us  a  pecuniary  interest  in 
the  island.  When  it  was  proposed  in  Congress  that  the 
Cubans  be  recognized  as  belligerents  (March,  1896), 
Godkin  regarded  this  as  evidence  that  Cleveland's  Vene- 
zuela message  had  turned  the  thoughts  of  Congressmen 
toward  baiting  other  nations.  "He  suggested  to  a  body 
of  idle,  ignorant,  lazy,  and  not  very  scrupulous  men  an 
exciting  game,  which  involved  no  labor  and  promised  lots 
of  fun,  and  would  be  likely  to  furnish  them  with  the  means 
of  annoying  and  embarrassing  him."  Recognition  was 
out  of  the  question,  for  the  Cubans  had  no  capital,  no  gov- 
ernment, and  no  army  but  guerrilla  bands.  These  facts 
A.  G.  Sedgwick  demonstrated  in  "A  Cuban  Catechism." 
However,  a  number  of  incidents  showed  that  American 
feeling  was  really  growing.  Princeton  students  that 
spring  hanged  the  boy  heir  to  the  Spanish  throne  in  effigy, 
miners  in  Leadville  burnt  a  Spanish  flag  in  the  street,  and 
Senator  Morgan  of  Alabama  tried  in  June  to  lash  Con- 
gress into  excitement  over  the  American  citizens  who  had 
been  roughly  treated  by  the  Spanish  authorities  in  Cuba. 

At  no  time  did  the  Evening  Post  conceal  the  fact  that 
American  interference  might  become  necessary.  Civil 
war  in  Cuba  could  not  continue  indefinitely;  if  the  island 
were  not  pacified  within  a  reasonable  period,  the  United 
States  would  be  justified  in  demanding  a  new  policy  on  the 
part  of  Spain.  Nor  did  it  at  any  time  conceal  its  indigna- 
tion at  Weyler's  inhumane  policy  of  herding  the  Cuban 
peasantry  into  the  Spanish  lines,  and  at  other  Spanish 
mistakes.  Late  in  1897  Spain  offered  Cuba  a  form  of 
autonomy,   but   on  careful  examination,    the  Post  pro- 


SPANISH  WAR  AND  SILVER  507 

nounced  It  a  hollow  cheat.  The  'great  essentials  of  gov- 
ernment were  kept  In  Spanish  hands,  and  only  a  pretty 
plaything  was  extended.  When  Weyler  was  replaced  by 
Blanco,  who  was  sent  out  to  pursue  conciliation,  the  paper 
predicted  that  he  would  fall  as  generations  before  Alex- 
ander of  Parma  had  failed  when  sent  by  Philip  II  to 
replace  the  bloody  Alva  In  the  low  countries.  No  man,  It 
said,  could  rule  Cuba  with  a  sword  In  one  hand  and  an 
olive  branch  In  the  other.  On  Sept.  18,  1897,  our  Min- 
ister at  Madrid  tendered  the  friendly  offices  of  the  United 
States,  and  hinted  that  If  the  rebellion  continued.  Presi- 
dent McKInley  would  take  serious  action.  The  Post 
spoke  approvingly : 

This,  it  is  important  to  recall,  is  the  historic  American  position, 
and  is  the  only  rational  and  justifiable  way  of  dealing  with  an 
affair  which,  in  any  aspect,  is  deplorable  and  thick  with  embar- 
rassments. No  longer  ago  than  President  Cleveland's  message  of 
Dec.  7,  1896,  interference  on  the  lines  indicated  was  distinctly 
foreshadowed,  and  he  was  but  taking  his  stand  where  President 
Grant  had  taken  his  in  1874  and  1875.  With  our  foreign  affairs 
then  in  the  careful  hands  of  Hamilton  Fish,  interference  with 
Spain  on  the  ground  of  the  prolonged  rebellion  in  Cuba  was  yet 
distinctly  intimated.  In  his  annual  message  of  Dec.  7,  1874, 
Gen.  Grant  referred  to  the  continuance  of  the  "deplorable  strife 
in  Cuba,"  then  of  six  years'  duration,  and  said  that  "positive  steps 
on  the  part  of  other  Powers"  might  become  /'a  matter  of  self- 
necessity." 

But  the  Evening  Post  believed  such  interference  should 
be  peaceful.  As  the  year  1898  opened.  It  was  confident 
that  war  could  be  avoided.  It  knew  that  the  Cubans 
would  keep  on  fighting,  and  that  Spain,  nearly  bankrupt, 
her  soldiers  dispirited,  could  not  suppress  the  rebellion. 
But  it  thought  that  patient,  friendly  pressure  by  the 
United  States  upon  Spain  would  force  her  to  recognize 
the  facts  and  give  the  Cubans  a  government  that  would 
satisfy  them.  When  In  February  the  Journal  published  a 
letter  by  the  Spanish  Minister,  Dupuy  de  Lome,  calling 
McKInley  a  cheap  politician  and  caterer  to  the  rabble, 
Godkin  credited  most  Americans  with  taking  the  incident 


5o8  THE  EVENING  POST 

good-naturedly — with  finding  De  Lome's  mortification 
and  immediate  resignation  a  source  of  amusement  rather 
than  anger.  A  few  days  later  (Feb.  15)  the  destruction 
of  the  Maine,  with  the  loss  of  226  lives,  caused  a  wave 
of  horror  and  indignation,  unparalleled  since  Fort  Sum- 
ter, to  sweep  the  country.  Even  yet,  however,  the  Post 
could  point  with  gratification  to  the  steadiness  of  the 
general  public,  and  its  willingness  to  suspend  judgment  till 
an  inquiry  was  made.  The  attitude  of  both  Capt.  Sigsbee 
of  the  Maine  and  President  McKinley  it  pronounced  ad- 
mirable, as  it  did  that  of  many  important  newspapers: 

The  danger  was  that  something  rash  would  be  done  in  the  first 
confused  moments.  When  once  we  began  to  think  quietly  about 
the  afiFair,  the  rest  was  easy.  It  was  at  once  evident  that  the 
chances  were  enormously  in  favor  of  the  theory  that  the  blowing 
up  of  the  Maine  was  due  to  accident.  But  suppose  it  were  shown 
that  she  was  destroyed  by  foul  play  .  .  .  what  would  that  prove? 
That  we  should  instantly  declare  war  against  Spain?  By  no 
means.  It  is  simply  inconceivable  that  the  Spanish  authorities  in 
Cuba,  high  or  low,  could  have  countenanced  any  plot  to  destroy 
the  Maine.  Make  them  out  as  wicked  as  you  please,  they  are  not 
lunatics.  ... 

The  first  effect,  then,  of  this  shocking  calamity  upon  the  nation 
has  been  salutary.  It  has  discovered  in  us  a  reserve  of  sanity,  of 
calmness,  of  poise,  and  weight,  which  is  worth  more  than  all  our 
navy.  If  we  are  able  to  display  these  qualities  throughout,  the 
world  will  think  better  of  us  and  our  self-respect  will  be  height- 
ened;  and,  despite  the  Jingoes,  it  is  better  to  have  foreign  nations 
admire  us  than  dread  us,  better  to  be  conscious  of  strength  of 
character  than  of  strength  of  muscle. 

One  exception  to  this  steadiness  of  opinion  was  fur- 
nished by  a  large  Congressional  group.  When  early  in 
March  Congress  debated  resolutions  declaring  Cuba  a 
belligerent,  Mr.  Godkin  characterized  the  debate  as  one 
that  Americans  could  not  read  without  humiliation. 
Many  Republican  Congressmen  frankly  looked  to  war  for 
partisan  advantage.  Representative  Grosvenor  of  Ohio 
said  that  it  would  be  a  Republican  war,  and  that  it  offered 
the  most  brilliant  opportunity  that  any  Administration 


SPANISH  WAR  AND  SILVER  509 

had  seen  since  Lincoln  "to  establish  itself  and  its  party  in 
the  praise  and  honor  and  glory  of  a  mighty  people."  Sena- 
tor Hale  echoed  him.  Senator  Piatt  said  there  would  be 
one  great  compensation  for  the  loss  of  life  and  treasure — 
"it  would  prevent  the  Democratic  party  from  going  into 
the  next  Presidential  campaign  with  Tree  Cuba'  and  Tree 
Silver'  emblazoned  on  its  banner."  Until  war  was  de- 
clared on  April  25,  the  Post  consistently  praised  President 
McKinley  in  one  column,  and  assailed  Congress  in  the 
next. 

But  its  chief  indignation  was  reserved  for  the  war 
press,  and  especially  for  the  Journal  and  World.  These 
newspapers  presented  a  curious  study.  From  the  files  of 
the  Evening  Post  it  would  hardly  have  been  gathered  that 
the  nation  was  laboring  under  marked  excitement,  but 
from  the  editorials,  pictures,  and  lurid  headlines  of  the 
other  two  it  appeared  that  the  people  were  at  fever  heat. 

"The  Worst  Insult  to  the  United  States  in  Its  History," 
was  the  heading  the  Journal  gave  De  Lome's  letter.  For 
days  thereafter  nearly  every  headline  contained  the  word 
"war."  "Spain  Makes  War  on  the  Journal  by  Seizing 
the  Yacht  Buccaneer,"  ran  one,  this  being  Hearst's  news- 
boat  at  Havana.  "Threatening  Moves  by  Both  Spain  and 
the  United  States — We  Send  Another  War  Vessel  to  Join 
Maine  at  Sea,"  followed  it  next  day.  After  the  catas- 
trophe to  the  Maine  the  Journal  made  the  welkin  ring. 
"The  Warship  Maine  Was  Split  in  Two  by  an  Enemy's 
Secret  Infernal  Machine!"  it  trumpeted.  "Officers  and 
Men  at  Key  West  Describe  the  Mysterious  Rending  of 
the  Vessel,  and  Say  It  Was  Done  by  Design  and  Not  by 
Accident — Captain  Sigsbee  Practically  Declares  That  His 
Ship  Was  Blown  Up  by  a  Mine  or  Torpedo."  These 
were  the  first  page  headlines  on  the  17th.  Inside  were 
ribbon  headlines  running  across  the  next  half  dozen  pages. 
"Belief  in  Havana  That  the  Maine  Was  Anchored  Over 
a  Mine" ;  "Foreign  Nations  Shocked  by  the  Belief  in 
Spanish  Treachery" ;  "War  Probable  if  Spaniards  Blew 
Up  American  Warship"  ;  "Let  the  Cabinet  Soon  Avenge 
the  Slaughtered  Sailors."     Next  day  the  Journal  blared, 


510  THE  EVENING  POST 

^The  Whole  Country  Thrills  With  the  War  Fever/' 
while  It  reported  a  poll  of  both  houses  showing  an  over- 
whelming sentiment  In  favor  of  Immediate  Intervention. 
The  World  also  knew  positively  within  a  few  hours 
that  the  Maine  was  blown  up  by  Spanish  treachery.  When 
Secretary  Long  pleaded  for  patience,  It  exposed  him  In 
a  glaring  indictment:  "Long's  Exoneration  of  Spain  Nets 
Senatorial  Clique  $20,000,000."  That  Is,  it  accused  Sen- 
ators of  playing  the  market.  Oil  the  same  page  a  news- 
story  demanded  a  whole  bank  of  headlines.  "  'Send 
Maine  Away!'  Begged  a  Stranger  at  Our  Consulate — 
Every  Day  for  a  Week  a  Mysterious  Elderly  Spaniard 
Offered  That  Warning,  But  It  Was  Unheeded,  for  He 
Was  Deemed  a  Crank."  It  had  the  same  Iteration  as  the 
Journal.  Thus  on  March  4  its  headlines  ran,  "Torpedo 
Blew  Up  the  Maine,  High  Spanish  Officer  Says — If  His 
Story  Is  True,  It  Verifies  the  World  Correspondent's 
Earliest  News."  On  March  12  It  announced:  "Full  and 
Convincing  Proof  That  the  Maine  Was  Destroyed  Ex- 
actly as  the  World  Exclusively  and  Authoritatively  Told 
Three  Days  After  the  Disaster." 

The  Journal  and  JVorld  were  the  two  New  York  news- 
papers then  preeminent  for  their  Illustrations.  The 
former  specialized  In  pictures  of  "How  the  Maine  Actu- 
ally Looks,  Wrecked  by  Spanish  Treachery."  It  had 
drawings  of  dead  bodies,  "vultures  hovering  over  their 
grim  feast";  piles  of  coffins;  divers  among  the  tangled 
wreckage;  starving  reconcentrados;  the  VIzcaya  In  New 
York  harbor;  Mayor  Van  Wyck  Insulting  the  VIzcaya's 
captain  at  City  Hall;  big  guns  being  mounted  on  Ameri- 
can forts;  of  troops  drilling;  and  a  "frenzy  on  the  stock 
exchange,  realizing  the  Imminence  of  war."  More  than 
a  month  before  war  was  declared  the  Journal  plastered 
Its  first  page  with  an  announcement  of  its  "War  Fleet, 
Correspondents,  and  Artists,"  these  including  Julian 
Hawthorne,  James  Creelman,  Alfred  Henry  Lewis,  and 
Frederic  Remington.  The  World  was  notable  for  car- 
toons, the  prevailing  theme  of  which  was  Uncle  Sam 
kicking  Spain  out  of  Cuba  into  the  Atlantic. 


SPANISH  WAR  AND  SILVER  511 

Mr.  Godkln's  opinion  of  the  newspaper  jingoes  was 
only  a  little  more  savage  than  that  of  many  other  sober 
men.  When  a  Journal  reporter  just  before  war  began 
fabricated  an  interview  with  Roosevelt,  then  Assistant 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  the  latter  seized  the  opportunity 
for  a  frank  statement  of  his  estimate  of  the  paper.  When 
the  same  sheet  asked  ex-President  Cleveland  to  serve  on 
a  committee  to  erect  a  monument  to  the  Maine  heroes, 
Mr.  Cleveland  wired  back:  "I  decline  to  allow  my  sor- 
row for  those  who  died  on  the  Maine  to  be  perverted  to 
an  advertising  scheme  for  the  New  York  Journal/*  God- 
kin  was  brutally  frank.  "A  yellow  journal  office  is  prob- 
ably the  nearest  approach,  in  atmosphere,  to  hell,  existing 
in  any  Christian  state,"  he  wrote.  This  press  he  deemed 
a  totally  irresponsible  force,  without  the  restraint  of  con- 
science, law,  or  the  police.  It  treated  war,  he  said,  as  a 
prize  fight,  and  begat  in  hundreds  of  thousands  of  the 
class  which  enjoys  prize-fights  an  eager  desire  to  read 
about  it.  "These  hundreds  of  thousands  write  to  their 
Congressmen  clamoring  for  war,  as  the  Romans  used  to 
clamor  for  panem  et  circenses,  and  as  the  timid  and  quiet 
are  generally  attending  only  too  closely  to  their  business, 
the  Congressman  concludes  that  if  he,  too,  does  not  shout 
for  war,  he  will  lose  his  seat.  .  .  .  Our  cheap  press  to-day 
speaks  in  tones  never  before  heard  out  of  Paris.  It  urges 
upon  ignorant  people  schemes  more  savage,  disregard  of 
either  policy,  or  justice,  or  experience  more  complete,  than 
the  modern  world  has  witnessed  since  the  French  Revo- 
lution." 

It  was  with  reference  to  such  journalism  that  the 
Times,  which  this  year  went  to  the  one-cent  basis  of  the 
JVorld  and  Journal,  spoke  of  itself  as  a  paper  which  does 
not  "soil  the  breakfast  table."  Godkin  argued  that  the 
public,  by  purchasing  the  yellow  sheets,  made  itself  the 
accomplice  of  their  jingo  editors.  The  Journal  struck 
back  at  him  and  Bennett  of  the  Herald.  It  was  not  sur- 
prised, it  said,  by  the  abuse  it  received  from  editors  who 
either  lived  in  Europe,  or,  being  native  there,  came  to  this 
country  too  late  in  life  to  absorb  the  spirit  of  American 


512  THE  EVENING  POST 

institutions;  these  men  were  unfitted  to  gauge  the  trend 
and  force  of  national  opinion,  and  were  un-American  in 
their  instincts,  while  the  Journal,  with  its  million  buyers  a 
day,  was  an  American  paper  for  the  American  people. 

Until  just  before  the  declaration  of  war,  Godkin  tried 
to  cling  to  his  faith  in  McKinley's  steadfastness.  On 
April  5  he  wrote :  "He  has,  with  a  firmness  for  which  we 
confess  we  did  not  give  him  credit,  retained  the  Cuban 
matter  in  his  own  hands,  and  has  made  no  concealment  of 
his  belief  that  he  could  settle  it,  if  left  alone,  by  peaceful 
methods."  The  editor  believed  that  America  could  justly 
demand  of  Spain  an  immediate  armistice,  relief  of  the 
reconcentrados,  and  an  offer  of  genuine  autonomy  to  the 
Cubans.  It  appeared  in  the  early  days  of  April  that 
Premier  Sagasta  was  willing  to  concede  as  much,  and 
Godkin  thought  this  offered  a  bridge  to  assured  peace. 
Why  not  accept  the  Spanish  Ministry's  concessions,  he 
wrote  April  9  and  later,  and  give  a  fair  trial  to  their 
autonomy?  What  reason  had  we  to  make  a  further  de- 
mand for  the  withdrawal  of  all  Spanish  troops?  And  if 
we  did  demand  it,  how  could  we  expect  Spain  to  accede 
until  the  Cortes  met  on  April  25,  since  only  the  Cortes 
had  power  to  surrender  Spanish  territory?  It  was  true 
that  the  Cubans  refused  an  armistice  and  autonomy.  But, 
argued  Godkin,  they  did  so  only  because  they  counted  on 
dragging  us  into  the  war  upon  the  margin  between  auton- 
omy and  absolute  independence.  And  what  a  pitiful  mar- 
gin that  was!  No  one  believed  that  the  Cubans  were 
ready  for  absolute  independence,  for  like  the  Central 
American  peoples,  they  would  be  turbulent  and  unstable, 
requiring  constant  oversight.  Then  why  not  leave  them 
under  the  Spanish  flag  so  long  as  they  had  the  healthy 
substance,  even  though  not  the  name,  of  freedom? 

Mr.  Godkin  did  not  give  up  hope  even  when,  on  April 
II,  McKinley  sent  Congress  his  war  message,  asking  that 
he  be  empowered  to  use  the  armed  forces  of  the  United 
States  "to  secure  a  full  and  final  termination  of  hostilities 
between  the  Government  of  Spain  and  the  people  of 
Cuba."    He  took  the  view  that  this  was  not  equivalent  to 


SPANISH  WAR  AND  SILVER  513 

a  use  of  our  armed  forces  against  Spain — that  it  meant 
only  that  McKinley  was  going  to  insist  upon  a  truce.  The 
Evening  Post  seized  upon  the  fact  that  McKinley  had 
advised  against  recognition  of  the  Cuban  Republic,  and 
upon  his  hopeful  words  regarding  Queen  Isabel's  procla- 
mation of  an  armistice,  as  proof  that  the  door  to  peace 
was  not  closed.  In  fact,  many  sober  men  hoped  for  days 
after  this  message  that  McKinley  would  somehow  avert 
a  collision  with  Spain.  Howells  says  that  on  one  of  these 
warm  April  nights  he  walked  down  the  street  with  God- 
kin,  the  two  talking  gloomily  of  the  outlook,  and  that  as 
they  parted,  Godkin  shook  off  his  fears  with  a  quick,  ''O, 
well,  there  isn't  going  to  be  any  war,  after  all."  But  Spain 
at  once  severed  diplomatic  relations,  the  United  States 
declared  a  blockade  of  Cuba,  and  the  die  was  cast.  A 
few  mornings  after  Godkin's  talk  with  Howells,  the  jingo 
press  gloated  over  the  capture  of  a  poor  little  Spanish 
schooner,  whose  captain  and  owner  wept  to  find  his  all 
confiscated. 

Not  until  later  was  it  revealed  that  when  he  sent  his 
war  message  to  Congress,  President  McKinley  failed  to 
inform  it  of  the  full  scope  and  definiteness  of  the  Spanish 
concessions  regarding  Cuba.  Of  this  failure  two  views 
may  be  taken.  One  is  that  he  knew  no  reliance  could  be 
placed  upon  Spain's  good  faith,  and  that  she  could  not 
end  the  intolerable  state  of  affairs  in  the  island  if  she  tried. 
The  other  is  that  McKinley  was  guilty  of  duplicity  all 
along;  that  he  had  played  a  waiting  game  until  prepara- 
tions could  be  made  for  war  and  the  public  mind  accus- 
tomed to  it,  and  then  willingly  let  the  advocates  of  inter- 
vention have  their  way.  Godkin  and  the  Post  took  the 
second  view,  and  in  later  days  spoke  of  the  President's 
conduct  in  this  crisis  with  scorn. 

Yet  the  newspaper,  applauded  though  it  was  in  its  prot- 
estant  attitude  by  the  intellectual  group  which  Howells, 
Carl  Schurz,  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  and  Charles  Francis 
Adams  represented,  rallied  to  support  the  war.  Since  it 
had  come,  it  hoped  it  would  be  short  and  decisive.    Before 


514  THE  EVENING  POST 

hostilities  began,  it  had  said  much  regarding  the  unpre- 
paredness  of  the  nation,  and  the  certainty  of  graft  in  con- 
ducting the  conflict.  But  now  it  urged  the  energetic  prose- 
cution of  the  contest,  praised  the  martial  ardor  of  Ameri- 
can youth,  and  commended  the  military  and  naval  policies 
of  the  Administration.  Mr.  Godkin  had  no  petty  rancor 
and  no  lack  of  patriotism.  Other  journals  were  lavish  of 
faultfinding,  but  no  criticism  found  its  way  into  the  Eve^ 
ning  Post  until  practically  all  fighting  was  ended. 

To  the  series  of  victories  which  began  with  Dewey's 
exploit  at  Manila,  the  Post  rose  with  fitting  enthusiasm. 
It  called  the  Santiago  campaign,  when  it  ended  on  July  15, 
a  brilliant  impromptu.  Who  would  have  thought  two 
months  earlier  that  a  triumph  of  such  magnitude  would  so 
soon  be  won?  Then  the  flower  of  the  Spanish  navy  had 
lain  in  the  harbor,  and  a  Spanish  force  estimated  at 
20,000  to  35,000  held  the  well-fortified  city;  but  in  less 
than  two  months  the  fleet  had  been  destroyed,  the  city 
taken,  and  the  army  made  prisoners,  all  with  a  loss  of  less 
than  300  American  lives.  The  Post  paid  a  due  tribute  to 
the  valor  of  American  fighting  men : 

Lieut.  Hobson  deprecated  the  cheers  that  welcomed  him  back 
to  the  American  lines.  "Any  of  you  would  have  done  it."  Very 
likely.  We  know  that  practically  every  man  on  the  fleet  offered 
to  go  with  him  when  volunteers  were  called  for.  Such  high  ap- 
peals to  bravery  and  duty  command  their  own  response.  But  the 
men  below — the  engineers,  exposed  to  death  without  being  able 
to  strike  a  blow;  the  stokers,  whose  enemy  is  the  cruel  heat  in 
which  they  have  to  work — where  does  their  heroism  come  in  ?  Of 
course,  in  the  same  self-forgetful  devotion  to  their  duty  which 
marks  some  world-resounding  deed  of  an  officer  like  Hobson. 
That  was  a  frightful  detail  of  the  Spanish  flight  to  ruin — the 
officers  having  to  stand  over  gunners  and  stokers  with  drawn  pis- 
tols to  keep  them  to  their  task.  Ships  on  which  that  was  neces- 
sary were  evidently  beaten  in  advance.  Contrast  the  state  of 
things  on  the  Oregon,  in  her  long  voyage  against  time  from  the 
Pacific.  Captain  Clark  reported  that  even  the  stokers  worked 
till  they  fainted  in  the  fire-room,  and  then  would  fight  to  go  back 
as  soon  as  they  recovered  consciousness.  To  hurry  up  coaling,  the 
officers  threw  ofi  their  coats  and  slaved  like  navvies.     There  we 


SPANISH  WAR  AND  SILVER  5^5 

see  the  spirit  of  heroism  pervading  a  ship  from  captain  to  coal- 
heaver  ;  and  it  is  that  which  makes  the  navy  invincible. 

Ill 

As  summer  ended,  however,  and  the  cessation  of  fight- 
ing gave  the  country  an  opportunity  to  ask  Itself  what 
it  should  do  with  Cuba,  Porto  Rico,  and  the  Philippines, 
the  continuity  of  the  Evening  Post's  policy  became  plain. 
For  one  thing.  It  now  felt  able  to  state  Its  frank  opinion 
that  the  war  had  been  criminally  unnecessary.  Gtn. 
Woodford,  our  last  Minister  at  Madrid,  and  Congress- 
man Boutelle  made  speeches  at  a  Boston  dinner  on  Oct. 
28  in  which  they  both  virtually  said  as  much.  In  all  its 
references  to  the  conflict  after  midsummer  the  paper  made 
clear  its  conviction  that  it  was  "due  solely  to  the  combina- 
tion of  a  sensational  and  unscrupulous  press  with  an 
equally  reckless  and  unscrupulous  majority  in  Congress 
and  a  weak  executive  in  the  White  House."  But  the  chief 
energies  of  the  Post  were  devoted  to  opposing  the  designs 
of  those  who  wanted  to  annex  the  Philippines  and  Cuba, 
or  at  least  the  former.  When  the  war  was  impending,  it 
had  dreaded  the  loss  in  life  and  money  much  less  than  the 
deterioration  which  might  be  produced  in  the  national 
fiber,  and  had  predicted  the  possible  transformation  of 
America  Into  an  international  swaggerer.  Now  Godkin 
saw  indisputable  evidence  that  the  European  virus  of  im- 
perialism, economic  and  political,  was  entering  our  veins. 

"Manifest  Destiny"  was  the  argument  used  against  the 
Evening  Post,  Springfield  Republican,  Senators  Hoar, 
Hale,  and  Spooner,  Carl  Schurz,  and  the  other  leaders  in 
the  struggle  against  annexations.  What  would  you  do 
with  the  Philippines?  they  were  asked.  Since  they  were 
in  our  hands,  could  we  abandon  them  without  thought  of 
their  future?  "As  matters  now  stand,"  answered  the 
Evening  Post  on  Oct.  i,  1898,  "having  possession  of 
Manila,  we  should  do  what  we  could  to  make  Spain  give 
the  Philippines  a  better  government  or  hand  them  over 
to  the  lawful  owners — the  inhabitants."  The  whole 
American  theory  of  government  was  opposed  to  alien  rule. 


5i6  THE  EVENING  POST 

We  could  never  incorporate  the  Philippines  in  the  Union 
— this  argument  the  Post  had  also  used  against  annexing 
Hawaii — and  it  was  a  total  reversal  of  national  policy  to 
acquire  territory  that  could  not  be  incorporated.  Reply- 
ing to  the  contention  that  the  Filipinos  might  be  unable  to 
erect  a  good  government,  the  Post  asked  if  New  York 
and  Pennsylvania  under  Piatt  and  Quay  had  one. 

The  chief  assertions  of  the  Evening  Post,  some  of  them 
since  validated  and  some  invalidated  by  time,  are  worth 
noting  seriatim.  It  feared  that  the  cost  of  subjugating, 
garrisoning  and  governing  the  Philippines  would  be 
heavy.  It  pointed  out  that  in  the  management  of  inferior 
peoples — the  negro  slaves,  Indians,  Chinese — had  lain 
the  source  of  our  chief  national  troubles.  Our  Federal 
authorities  had  always  shown  marked  incapacity  for  gov- 
erning such  wards,  as  their  "century  of  dishonor"  in  deal- 
ing with  the  Indians,  and  wretched  treatment  of  the  freed- 
men  during  Reconstruction  proved.  The  American  Gov- 
ernment had  been  erected  to  provide  for  the  welfare  and 
liberty  of  the  American  nation  alone,  and  if  we  undertook 
in  a  spirit  of  expansion  to  carry  benefits  to  every  mis- 
governed race  with  which  we  came  in  accidental  contact, 
we  would  soon  be  in  trouble  in  every  part  of  the  globe. 
The  Post  believed  that  half  the  talk  of  Duty  and  Destiny 
was  raised  by  people  on  the  make,  who  wanted  their  trade 
to  follow  the  flag.  The  name  of  the  United  States,  it 
asserted,  had  been  great  because  it  stood  for  peaceful 
industry,  contempt  for  the  military  adventures  of  Europe, 
and  the  right  of  every  separate  people  to  liberty;  its  in- 
fluence had  furnished  the  chief  hope  for  disarmament,  and 
now  was  it  to  be  thrown  away  for  the  pride  of  possessing 
"subjects"  ?  Above  all,  Godkin  apprehended  the  effect  of 
expansion  on  our  national  character.  The  great  question, 
as  Bishop  Potter  put  it,  was  not  what  we  should  do  with 
the  Philippines,  but  what  the  Philippines  would  do  with  us. 

So  intense  was  the  Post's  feeling  that  it  virtually  op- 
posed Theodore  Roosevelt  when  the  fall  of  1898  he  ran 
for  the  Governorship  against  the  Tammany  candidate 
Van  Wyck.    Ordinarily,  it  would  have  supported  him  en- 


SPANISH  WAR  AND  SILVER  517 

thuslastically  in  such  a  contest,  but  Roosevelt's  annexa- 
tionist speeches  led  it  to  declare  that  Tammany  control 
would  be  a  local  and  temporary  evil,  while  any  encourage- 
ment to  imperialism  would  be  national  and  irrevocable. 
Early  in  1899  the  Posfs  correspondents  in  Manila  warned 
it  that,  as  one  wrote,  "the  United  States  must  make  up 
their  minds  either  to  fight  for  these  islands  or  to  give  them 
up."  Just  before  the  peace  treaty,  carrying  annexation 
of  the  islands,  was  ratified,  occurred  Aguinaldo's  attempt 
to  rush  the  American  lines  at  Manila.  Godkin  declared 
that  we  had  paid  $20,000,000  simply  for  a  right  to  con- 
quer, adding  bitterly : 

We  have  apparently  rushed  into  this  business  with  as  little 
preparation  or  forethought  as  into  the  Cuban  War.  We  got 
hold  of  the  notion  that  it  would  be  a  good  thing  to  annex  1,200 
islands  at  the  other  end  of  the  world,  simply  because  we  won  a 
naval  victory  over  a  feeble  Power  in  the  harbor  of  one  of  them, 
and  because  people  like  Griggs  of  New  Jersey  wanted  some 
"glory."  We  then  went  to  work  to  buy  i  ,200  islands  without  any/\ 
knowledge  of  their  extent,  population,  climate,  production,  or  of 
the  feelings,  wishes,  or  capacity  of  the  inhabitants.  We  did  not 
even  know  their  number.  While  in  this  state  of  ignorance,  far 
from  trying  to  conciliate  them,  assure  them  of  our  good  inten- 
tions, disarm  their  suspicions  of  us — men  of  a  different  race,  Ian-  \ 
guage,  and  religion,  of  whom  they  had  only  recently  heard — we  I 
issued  one  of  the  most  contemptuous  and  insulting  proclamations  1 
a  conqueror  has  ever  issued,  announcing  to  them  that  their  most  1 
hated  and  secular  enemy  had  sold  them  to  us,  and  that  if  they  / 
did  not  submit  quietly  to  the  sale  we  should  kill  them  freely.        ^ 

It  was  now  impossible  to  advocate  immediate  and  com- 
plete evacuation,  and  during  the  spring  of  1899  the  Post 
suggested  another  solution.  It  proposed  that  instead  of 
administering  the  islands  as  a  possession,  we  content  our- 
selves with  setting  up  a  protectorate,  allowing  the  Filipino 
republic  to  function  under  our  general  oversight.  The 
islanders  were  willing  to  accept  this,  for  they  knew  they 
could  not  stand  alone  against  the  voracity  of  Europe.  We 
could  send  them  schoolteachers,  sanitary  experts,  mission- 
aries, and  government  advisers,  but  we  would  not  have 


5i8  THE  EVENING  POST 

to  crush  their  spirit  before  we  began  helping  them,  and 
would  be  their  friends,  not  their  conquerors.  Godkin 
was  shocked  by  the  lighthearted  irresponsibility  of  the 
annexationists.  "The  one  thing  which  will  prevent  expan- 
sion being  a  disgrace,  is  a  permanent  colonial  civil  serv- 
ice," he  wrote  a  friend,  "but  who  is  doing  a  thing  or  say- 
ing a  word  about  it?" 

While  the  controversy  over  the  Philippines  was  at  its 
hottest,  in  the  spring  of  1899,  Mr.  Godkin  left  for  Eu- 
rope, where  he  had  spent  every  summer  but  one  since 
1 89 1.  In  1897  he  had  received  his  D.  C.  L.  at  Oxford, 
and  in  1898  an  honorary  degree  at  Cambridge,  but  this 
year  the  alarming  state  of  his  health  was  his  sole  reason 
for  sailing.  The  warnings  of  the  doctors  in  Paris  and 
Vichy  were  so  earnest  that  he  resolved  to  give  up  his  con- 
nection with  the  Evening  Post,  His  formal  withdrawal 
took  place  Jan.  i,  1900,  but  though  he  was  home  in  New 
York  by  the  beginning  of  the  preceding  October,  he  con- 
tributed only  advice  and  an  "occasional  roar,"  as  Henry 
James  put  it,  to  the  Post  thereafter.  It  was  a  depressing 
moment  for  him  to  lay  down  his  pen.  The  United  States 
seemed  to  have  caught  the  infection  of  the  Old  World 
fever  that  he  feared.  His  native  country  was  busy  crush- 
ing the  Boer  republics.  The  political  condition  of  the 
nation,  the  State,  and  the  city,  with  Mark  Hanna,  Piatt 
and  Quigg,  Croker  and  Sheehan  at  the  height  of  their 
power,  was  such  as  to  make  the  editor  feel  that  the  forces 
against  which  he  had  battled  were  too  strong  to  defeat. 
But  as  Charles  Eliot  Norton  wrote  him,  he  had  earned 
the  right  to  leave  the  field.  "When  the  work  of  this  cen- 
tury is  summed  up,  what  you  have  done  for  the  good  old 
cause  of  civilization,  the  cause  which  is  always  defeated, 
but  always  after  defeat  taking  more  advanced  position 
than  before — what  you  have  done  for  this  cause  will 
count  for  much." 


CHAPTER  TWENTY-FOUR 

CHARACTERISTICS  OF  A  FIGHTING  EDITOR:    E.   L.  GODKIN 

One  essential  qualification  of  a  great  editor,  a  master- 
ful personality,  was  so  distinctively  possessed  by  Mr. 
Godkin  that  it  may  be  doubted  whether  any  other  Amer- 
ican daily  since  the  Civil  War  has  been  so  much  the  ex- 
pression of  a  single  mind  and  character  as  the  Evening! 
Post  from  1883  to  1899.  The  frequent  statement  that 
he  was  an  incomparable  leader-writer,  but  not  an  all- 
round  journalist,  has  an  element  of  truth,  but  is  highly 
misleading.  The  editorial  page  was  wholly  his  own,  for 
he  determined  its  policies,  molded  the  ideas  of  his  fellow- 
editors,  and  by  force  of  example  gave  several  of  them — 
as  a  great  editor  always  will — some  characteristics  of 
his  style.  The  news  pages  he  accorded  only  distant  over- 
sight, and  one  of  his  city  editors  doubts  whether  he  reg- 
ularly read  more  than  the  first  page  and  the  page  opposite 
the  editorials.  Yet  every  cub  reporter  grasped  Godkin's 
clear-cut  ideas  of  what  a  newspaper  should  be,  and  strove 
to  contribute  his  mite  to  the  realization  of  the  editor's 
ideals.  There  was  no  other  journal  resembling  It,  and 
its  dignity,  integrity,  thoughtfulness,  scholarly  accuracy, 
and  pride  of  intellect  were  the  reflection  of  Godkin's  own 
traits.  We  may  say  that  while  Godkin  did  not  pay  close 
daily  attention  to  any  part  of  his  journal  save  the  edi- 
torials, the  news  writers,  the  financial  writers,  the  critics, 
and  the  business  department  all  paid  close  attention  to 
Mr.  Godkin's  views  regarding  their  work;  they  would 
no  more  have  thought  of  standing  counter  to  them  than 
of  stepping  in  front  of  an  Alpine  avalanche. 

The  soul  of  the  paper,  its  editorial  page,  was  the 
product  of  a  morning  editorial  conference  which  in  its 
highly  developed  character  Mr.  Godkin  was  the  first  to 
give  New  York  journalism.     Upon  the  Post  of  Bryant's 

519 


520         '         THE  EVENING  POST 

day,  and  upon  the  Tribune  under  Greeley  and  his  succes- 
sive managing  editors,  consultation  had  been  brief,  and 
the  assignment  of  editorial  topics  hasty.  The  elder  Ben- 
nett had  been  wont  to  give  Herald  writers  their  subjects 
for  the  day  as  so  many  orders.  But  the  necessity  of  treat- 
ing ten  or  twelve  different  editorial  topics  in  each  issue 
of  the  Post  after  1881,  and  Mr.  Godkin's  solicitude  that 
each  topic  be  treated  just  right,  made  an  elaborate  con- 
ference imperative.  At  about  nine  the  editorial  staff 
gathered  in  a  circle  of  chairs  in  Mr.  Godkin's  room, 
having  mastered  the  morning  papers,  and  a  businesslike 
discussion  filled  forty  minutes. 

Every  writer  was  encouraged  to  propose  his  own  theme 
for  a  paragraph  or  column  editorial,  and  to  speak  freely 
upon  themes  raised  by  others.  But  Mr.  Godkin  had  a 
merciless  way  with  unsound  or  commonplace  Ideas.  When 
some  one  started  a  subject,  he  would  pounce  upon  him 
with  "What  would  you  say  about  It?"  and  an  intensely 
searching  glance.  It  was  a  trying  moment.  If  the  junior 
editor  had  nothing  worth  while  to  say,  Godkin  would  cut 
across  his  flounderlngs  with  "O,  there's  nothing  In  that," 
or  "We  said  that  the  other  day,"  or  "O,  everybody  sees 
that" — emphasizing  the  statement  with  a  sharp  gesture 
or  a  swing  in  his  chair.  "Sometimes,  after  an  interested 
attention  for  a  few  seconds,"  writes  Mr.  Bishop,  "a 
quick,  searching  question  would  be  put  that  went  through 
the  subject  like  a  knife  through  a  toy  balloon,  leaving 
complete  and  utter  collapse." 

However,  proportionately  great  was  the  reward  of 
the  fortunate  man  who  had  an  original  idea,  or  a  new 
way  of  presenting  an  old  one.  Mr.  Godkin's  eye  would 
kindle  with  interest,  he  would  lean  forward  alertly,  and 
catching  up  the  theme,  he  would  perhaps  begin  to  enlarge 
it  by  ideas  of  his  own,  search  Its  depths  with  penetrating 
inquiries,  and  reveal  such  possibilities  In  It  that  the 
original  speaker  had  the  feeling  of  having  stumbled  over 
a  concealed  diamond.  If  the  chief,  as  was  usually  the 
fact,  was  provided  with  his  own  topic  for  the  day,  the 
proposer  bore  his  discovery  off  in  triumph.     If  not,  he 


A  FIGHTING  EDITOR  521 

sometimes  had  to  surrender  it.  "The  chances  were  ten 
to  the  dozen,"  says  Mr.  Bishop,  "that  Mr.  Godkin  would 
become  so  delighted  with  the  development  of  the  subject, 
so  intoxicated  with  the  intellectual  pleasures  of  the  treat- 
ment, that  he  would  say,  with  a  serene  smile  of  perfect 
enjoyment,  Til  write  on  that.'  " 

The  editorial  page  represented  work  done  not  leisurely, 
but  under  the  highest  pressure.  Articles  of  twelve  hun- 
dred words,  dealing  informatively,  thoughtfully,  and  in 
compressed  style  with  some  subject  perhaps  quite  un- 
expected until  that  morning,  had  to  be  completed  in 
about  an  hour  and  three-quarters.  Taken,  often  without 
change,  into  the  Nation,  they  withstood  the  test  of  sub- 
mission to  the  most  scholarly  and  exacting  audience  in 
America.  The  pace  was  not  for  the  muddleheaded.  But 
no  one  on  the  staff  could  hope  to  write  quite  like  Mr.  God- 
kin — with  his  wealth  of  ideas,  ability  to  see  a  dozen  rela- 
tionships in  a  subject  where  the  ordinary  man  saw  one, 
and  concise,  pithy,  and  graphic  style.  Lowell  told  him, 
"You  always  say  what  I  would  have  said — if  I  had  only 
thought  of  it."  In  the  correction  of  proofs  the  whole  staff 
was  expected  to  join.  Godkin  was  far  from  being  the 
most  approachable  of  editors,  but  to  any  suggestion  that 
there  was  a  defect  in  his  idea  or  expression  he  turned  a 
ready  ear.  Indeed,  if  a  fellow-editor  believed  that  a 
phrase  or  sentence  was  obscure,  he  would  usually  alter  it 
whether  he  agreed  or  not,  arguing  that  what  one  man  in 
the  office  found  faulty  might  seem  so  to  a  large  body  out- 
side. The  editorial  page  which  thus  appeared  in  its  final 
form  at  two  o'clock  was  an  embodiment  of  the  wisdom  of 
the  whole  editorial  group,  Mr.  Godkin  dominating. 

Brusque  and  cold  though  he  often  seemed  to  those  who 
did  not  know  him  well,  Godkin  to  the  other  editors  was 
essentially  a  lovable  man.  He  exacted  a  high  standard 
of  performance,  his  temper  was  highly  mercurial,  he  was 
often  abrupt  in  manner;  but  the  recollection  of  his  asso- 
ciates is  that  he  gave  the  office  an  atmosphere  of  geniality. 
He  delighted  in  jest.  He  would  repeat  with  great  gusto 
the  story  that  staff  meetings  opened  with  a  distribution 


-^ 


522  THE  EVENING  POST 

of  Cobden  Club  gold,  or — it  was  said  after  the  Venezuela 
episode — with  a  singing  of  "God  Save  the  Queen."  His 
fun  was  of  an  intellectual  kind,  but  he  never  failed  to  find 
subjects  for  it.  Frequently  the  editorial  conference  would 
break  up  in  a  gale  of  merriment.  Norton  once  wrote 
him,  when  the  Nation* s  troubles  were  giving  him  sleepless 
nights,  that  he  would  rather  see  the  weekly  perish  than 
have  its  editor  lose  his  jocularity,  and  Godkin  wrote  back: 
"I  shall  keep  my  laugh.  Don't  be  afraid."  Indeed,  his 
letters  contain  any  number  of  references  to  laughter,  and 
with  intimates  it  was  often  uproarious.  He  told  Howells 
that  his  youth  was  "harrowed  with  laughter."  When 
Howells  worked  beside  him  for  three  months  in  the 
Nation  office  the  novelist-to-be  found  that  "we  were  of  a 
like  temperament  in  the  willingness  to  laugh  and  make 
laugh."  If  anything  in  the  day's  news  particularly  apt 
for  Howells's  special  department  turned  up,  they  would 
talk  it  over,  "and  he  did  not  mind  turning  away  from 
his  own  manuscript  and  listening  to  what  I  had  written, 
if  the  subject  had  offered  any  chance  for  fun.  Then  his 
laugh,  his  Irish  laugh,  hailed  my  luck  with  it,  or  his  honest 
English  misgiving  expressed  itself  in  a  criticism  which  I 
had  to  own  just." 

Men  who  read  Godkin's  caustic  denunciation  of  some 
wrong-doer,  who  admired  the  keen  thrust  with  which  he 
punctured  a  bit  of  hypocrisy,  sometimes  assumed  that  he 
was  sour  and  censorious.  Such  readers  failed  to  realize 
that  he  had  a  dual  nature;  that  what  excited  his  wrath 
and  scorn  often  excited  his  risibilities  also.  "First  would 
come  the  savage  characterization,  then  the  peal  of  laugh- 
ter," writes  Mr.  Ogden.  He  had  a  tongue  for  humorous 
phrases,  an  eye  for  humorous  images,  and  a  marked  love 
for  comic  exaggeration.  After  his  retirement  in  1899, 
when  some  people  were  chattering  about  his  pessimism, 
the  weekly  articles  he  contributed  for  a  time  over  his  in- 
itials to  the  Evening  Post  abounded  in  amusing  sentences 
and  vivacious  anecdotes.  Reviewing  his  labors  for  civil 
service  reform,  he  recalled  how  when  he.  Congressman 
Jenckes,  and  Henry  Villard  held  the  first  meeting  on  the 


A  FIGHTING  EDITOR  523 

subject  In  New  York,  he  was  appointed  to  draft  resolu- 
tions; that  the  proposer  was  unable  to  read  his  hasty 
handwriting;  and  that  "more  unhappily  still,  when  I  was 
asked  to  take  his  place,  I  could  not  read  It  either!" 
Writing  of  McKinley's  amateur  statesmanship,  he  told 
of  the  youth  who,  asked  whether  he  could  play  the  piano, 
replied  that  "he  did  not  know,  for  he  had  never  tried." 
Discussing  Capt.  Mahan's  treatment  of  war  as  possessing 
benefits  as  well  as  evils,  he  was  reminded  of  the  French 
Deputy  who  did  not  want  to  lose  the  anarchist  votes 
scattered  through  his  district:  "My  friends,"  he  said, 
"there  Is  a  great  deal  of  good  In  anarchy;  only  we  must 
not  abuse  it."  Incessant  bits  like  these  reveal  the  fun- 
loving  nature,  the  overflowing  spirits,  of  the  man. 

Mr.  Godkln's  marked  social  proclivities  enlarged  his 
Influence  and  enriched  his  writing.  The  readiness  with 
which,  on  coming  to  America,  he  made  friends  among  the 
most  distinguished  men  of  Cambridge,  Boston,  and  New 
York  was  only  less  remarkable  than  the  long  Intimacy  he 
enjoyed  with  some  of  the  finest  minds  of  England  and  this 
country — with  Lowell  and  Norton,  Bryce  and  Henry 
James,  Gladstone  and  Parkman,  McKIm  and  Olmsted. 
He  was  a  genial  host,  a  witty,  diverting,  and  brIUiant 
guest.  Mr.  Ogden  gives  an  Instance  of  the  way  in  which 
his  personal  charm  and  full  mind  surprised  some  who 
thought  of  him  as  a  narrow,  savage  moralist  of  the  edi- 
torial page.  At  the  Century  Club  one  night  he  was  seated 
at  the  long  dinner  table  with  a  man  he  knew  and  another 
who  was  a  stranger.  The  latter  had  never  seen  Mr. 
Godkin  but  had  taken  a  violent  dislike  to  his  writings. 
Without  an  introduction,  the  talk  was  free  and  genial, 
and  Godkin  was  in  his  happiest  vein.  When  the  editor 
had  left  the  room,  the  stranger  Inquired  as  to  his  identity. 
"Is  that  Mr.  Godkin?"  he  exclaimed  in  surprise.  "Then 
I'll  never  say  another  word  against  him  as  long  as  I  live." 
Godkin  worked  with  great  intensity — as  he  himself  once 
said,  "almost  dangerously  hard."  His  gusto  and  en- 
thusiasm, especially  in  times  of  crisis  like  a  Presidential  or 
Tammany  campaign,  gave  him  an  extraordinary  absorp- 


524  THE  EVENING  POST 

tion  in  his  work.  Yet  he  found  time  to  see  and  talk  with 
a  surprising  number  of  people  worth  seeing — authors, 
reformers,  politicians,  college  professors,  the  best  lawyers 
of  the  city,  and  many  more. 

A  journal  of  twenty-two  days  of  his  life  (November, 
1870)  shows  what  a  multiplicity  of  public  meetings,  din- 
ners, calls,  and  club  evenings  interspersed  his  toil.  A  half 
dozen  times  he  dined  or  breakfasted  out  or  entertained 
to  dinner,  thus  seeing  among  others  Bryant,  Ripley, 
Charles  Loring  Brace,  and  H.  M.  Field.  He  was  also 
at  the  public  dinner  of  the  Mercantile  Library  Associa- 
tion, where  he  spoke  for  the  press,  and  of  the  Free 
Traders  at  Delmonico's  where  he  saw  A.  T.  Stewart, 
Peter  Cooper,  H.  C.  Potter,  Stewart  L.  Woodford,  Gen. 
McDowell,  and  David  A.  Wells.  He  went  to  a  civil 
service  meeting  at  Yale,  where  there  was  a  tea-party  in 
his  honor,  and  not  only  made  a  speech  but  "met  all  the 
big-bugs."  Once  he  lunched  with  Henry  and  Charles 
Francis  Adams.  He  records  going  in  torrents  of  rain 
to  a  night  meeting  of  revenue  reformers,  while  he  at- 
tended a  lecture  by  A.  J.  Mundella,  and  chatted  there 
with  G.  W.  Curtis.  Repeatedly  he  speaks  of  being  at  the 
Century  Club  and  seeing  a  long  list  of  acquaintances — 
Lord  Walter  Campbell,  Judge  Daly,  Gen.  Howard,  Wil- 
liam E.  Dodge,  H.  C.  Potter,  and  Cyrus  Field.  He  called 
upon  Horace  White,  then  in  the  city  from  Chicago,  and 
at  the  Nation  office  received  calls  from  Carl  Schurz  and 
Schuyler  Colfax,  the  latter  coming  while  he  was  out.  This 
was  nearly  a  dozen  years  before  he  became  one  of  the 
editors  of  the  Evening  Post,  but  he  always  maintained  a 
similar  activity.  What  it  meant  to  his  editorial  work  is 
self-evident.  As  one  of  his  junior  editors,  Mr.  Bishop, 
says,  all  was  grist  to  his  mill.  "A  casual  quip  in  conversa- 
tion, the  latest  good  story,  a  sentence  from  a  new  book, 
a  fresh  bit  of  political  slang — all  these  found  lodgment 
in  his  mind,  and  just  at  the  proper  place  they  would  ap- 
pear in  his  writing." 

Godkin  had  little  patience  for  mere  office  routine,  and 
as  he  grew  older  took  advantage  of  the  liberty  which  an 


A  FIGHTING  EDITOR  525 

evening  paper  often  gives  its  editor  for  leaving  early. 
His  dislike  for  bores  played  a  large  part  in  this.  As  he 
humorously  said,  he  saw  nobody  before  one,  and  at  one 
he  went  home.  Of  his  refusal  to  tolerate  callers  who 
abused  his  time  and  temper,  there  are  some  amusing 
stories.  A  dull  or  offensive  man  would  be  ushered  in,  the 
editor  would  endure  him  for  a  while,  and  then  upon  the 
heels  of  a  muffled  explosion,  the  caller  would  emerge, 
red  with  confusion  and  anger,  and  hurriedly  make  for  the 
elevator.  Mr.  H.  J.  Wright,  as  city  editor,  once  intro- 
duced a  gentleman  of  prominence,  with  an  extensive 
knowledge  of  municipal  affairs.  After  a  long  and  inter- 
esting chat,  Godkin  asked,  ''How  is  it  I  never  met  such  a 
well-informed  man  before  ?"  A  few  days  later  the  gentle- 
man called  again,  seated  himself  with  assurance  in  Mr. 
Godkin's  room,  and  began  to  repeat  himself,  a  thing  the 
editor  abominated.  Hearing  a  confusion  of  voices,  Mr. 
Wright  hurried  into  the  hall  to  find  Godkin  angrily 
shooing  the  interrupter  out  of  the  building. 

Mr.  Godkin  and  Horace  White  gathered  around  them 
an  editorial  staff  of  high  ability.  From  the  outset  they 
had  the  services  of  Arthur  G.  Sedgwick,  who  was  assistant 
editor  from  1881  to  1885,  and  later  not  only  contributed 
irregularly  at  all  times,  but  during  one  summer  worked 
in  the  office  in  Godkin's  absence.  He  was  a  writer  of 
strong  mental  grasp  and  individuality  of  style,  who 
furnished  editorials  and  book-reviews  on  an  amazing 
variety  of  topics,  and  had  the  knack  of  illuminating  and 
making  interesting  everything  he  touched.  His  education 
as  a  lawyer — he  had  been  co-editor  with  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  later  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  of  the  Amer- 
can  Law  Review — stood  him  in  good  stead  in  discussions 
of  government  and  politics,  he  wrote  much  on  belles 
lettres,  and  he  was  only  less  able  than  Godkin  himself  in 
treating  modes  and  manners.  When  Godkin  was  a  be- 
ginning editor  he  found  it  difficult,  as  he  wrote  Olmsted, 
to  get  an  associate  "to  do  the  work  of  gossiping  agreeably 
on  manners,  lager  beer,  etc.,  and  who  will  bind  himself 
to  do  it,  whether  he  feels  like  it  or  not."    Sedgwick  was 


526  '         THE  EVENING  POST 

just  the  man  for  the  light,  keen  treatment  of  social  topics. 
He  had  a  discerning  eye  and  a  quick  sense  of  humor. 
Many  of  his  editorials  were  as  good  as  the  short  essays 
of  the  same  type  which  Curtis  and  Howells  contributed 
to  the  Easy  Chair  of  Harper' s,  and  had  more  than  local 
and  temporary  fame.  For  example,  In  March,  1883,  he 
wrote  one  on  the  dude  which,  reprinted  all  over  the 
country,  did  much  to  familiarize  this  London  music-hall 
term.  It  traced  the  lineage  of  the  dude  from  the  dandy, 
fop,  and  swell;  it  carefully  distinguished  him  from  these 
earlier  types  by  his  intense  correctness,  contrasting  with 
their  display;  It  described  his  appearance  in  great  detail; 
it  explained  why  he  had  arisen  at  just  that  moment;  and 
it  closed  with  a  grave  warning  to  all  dudes  to  be  on  guard 
against  the  chief  menace  to  their  sober  conservatism — 
they  must  not  wear  white  spats. 

Joseph  Bucklln  Bishop,  later  well  known  as  secretary 
of  the  Isthmian  Commission  and  authorized  editor  of 
Roosevelt's  letters,  joined  the  Post  the  summer  of  1883, 
and  remained  with  it  until  1900,  when  he  became  chief 
of  the  Globe's  editorial  staff.  He  also  commanded  a  wide 
range  of  subjects,  though  he  dealt  much  more  with  politics 
than  Sedgwick,  and  he  wrote  with  a  great  deal  of  God- 
kin's  own  point.  To  Bishop  belongs  the  credit  for 
originating  the  Voters'  Directory  In  1884,  still  a  valued 
campaign  feature  of  the  Post,  while  he  had  a  principal 
hand  in  the  campaign  biographies  which  were  so  effective 
against  Tammany.  E.  P.  Clark  was  brought  from  the 
Springfield  Republican  into  the  office  when  Sedgwick  left 
in  the  mid-eighties,  and  until  after  the  end  of  the  century 
his  Industrious  hand  was  In  constant  evidence.  He  had 
the  most  nearly  colorless  style  of  the  staff,  but  his  full 
knowledge  and  accuracy  in  handling  governmental  and 
economic  topics  were  Invaluable. 

The  first  contributions  to  the  Post  by  Mr.  Rollo  Ogden 
were  printed  in  188 1,  and  during  the  next  three  years  he 
wrote  frequently  from  Mexico  City.  His  assistance  in- 
creased after  he  came  to  New  York  in  1887,  and  In  1891 
he  became  assistant  editor  and  one  of  the  pillars  of  the 


A  FIGHTING  EDITOR  527 

newspaper.  Besides  his  attention  to  national  and  inter- 
national politics,  he  gave  the  columns  a  much  more  liter- 
ary flavor  than  they  had  had  even  when  Sedgwick  was 
present.  There  were,  in  addition,  several  writers  of  a 
briefer  connection.  Early  in  the  eighties  some  articles 
exposing  the  defects  of  the  Tenth  Census  were  furnished 
by  John  C.  Rose,  a  Baltimore  attorney,  and  during  a 
number  of  summers  he  joined  the  office  staff;  a  Federal 
attorneyship,  followed  by  elevation  to  the  Federal  bench, 
ended  his  connection.  David  M.  Means,  another  attorney 
and  a  one-time  professor  at  Middlebury  College,  helped 
during  many  years  for  short  periods.  The  editorial  col- 
umns were  always  open  to  experts  in  various  fields  who 
wished  to  contribute.  Among  those  who  occasionally  fur- 
nished leaders  in  the  eighties  and  nineties  were  future 
college  presidents  like  A.  T.  Hadley  and  E.  J.  James, 
scientists  like  Simon  Newcomb  and  A.  F.  Bandelier,  and 
scholars  like  H.  H.  Boyesen  and  Worthington  C.  Ford. 

The  rank  and  file  of  the  city  room  regarded  Mr.  God- 
kin  as  a  remote  deity,  though  he  was  on  a  familiar  footing 
with  the  managing  editors.  Learned  and  Linn,  and  of 
frank  intimacy  with  the  city  editor,  H.  J.  Wright.  "I 
used  to  see  him  come  into  the  office  occasionally,"  writes 
Norman  Hapgood,  "with  very  much  the  same  emotion 
that  I  might  have  now  if  I  saw  Lloyd  George  walk  past 
me."  Godkin  frequently  rode  up  in  the  elevator  with 
reporters,  but  never  spoke  to  them,  and  did  not  know 
most  of  them  by  sight.  Mr.  Wright  gives  two  examples 
of  his  utter  indifference  to  a  performance  of  special  merit 
in  the  news  columns.  In  the  early  days  of  the  litigation 
over  the  interstate  commerce  commission,  there  was  a 
hearing  in  New  York  involving  intricate  law  points  and 
the  rather  obscure  rights  of  the  carrier,  attended  by  some 
of  New  York's  most  eminent  lawyers,  including  Godkin's 
friends  Choate  and  James  C.  Carter.  Norman  Hapgood, 
a  new  recruit,  was  assigned  the  difficult  task  of  covering 
it,  and  wrote  a  column  and  a  half  a  day  for  the  whole 
week.  When  the  hearing  closed,  Choate  sent  Godkin  a 
note  congratulating  him  upon  the  Post's  reports,  and  say- 


528  THE  EVENING  POST 

ing  that  few  lawyers  could  have  comprehended  the  argu- 
ments so  fully,  and  still  fewer  have  summarized  them  so 
well.  "Upon  this  deserved  encomium,"  says  Mr.  Wright, 
"Godkin  offered  no  comment,  nor  did  he  Inquire  as  to  the 
reporter's  Identity."  Again,  a  prominent  New  Yorker 
wrote  the  editor  praising  a  brief  account  of  the  descent 
of  an  awe-inspiring  thunderstorm,  and  recording  his 
pleasure  that  the  news  columns  showed  the  same  literary 
qualities  as  the  editorial  page.  Godkin  had  not  read  the 
news  story,  did  not  read  it,  and  did  not  ask  for  the 
writer's  name. 

One  element  in  this  was  Godkin's  assumption  that,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  the  news  pages  would  meet  a  high 
standard;  but  a  larger  element  was  sheer  Indifference  to 
the  reporters.  The  editorial  page  was  preeminently  the 
most  important  part  of  the  newspaper  to  him.  Absorbed 
in  the  ideas  he  spread  upon  it,  and  naturally  of  an  aloof 
temperament,  he  was  not  interested  in  subordinates  else- 
where. That  he  was  very  far  from  being  an  unapprecia- 
tlve  man  his  editorial  associates  alone  knew.  They  re- 
ceived cordial  notes  of  congratulation  from  him,  all  the 
more  prized  because  rare,  for  any  specially  meritorious 
work;  and  whenever  a  literary  review  particularly  struck 
him,  he  made  a  point  of  asking  for  the  writer's  name. 

Mr.  Towse,  the  dramatic  critic,  recalls  receiving  formal 
commendation  from  Godkin  twice  or  thrice.  One  occa- 
sion was  early  in  the  eighties,  when  Henry  Irving  opened 
in  a  Shakespearean  role  In  Philadelphia.  All  the  dramatic 
critics  were  taken  over  by  courtesy  of  the  theater,  enter- 
tained in  Philadelphia,  and  given  seats  at  the  perform- 
ance; and  most  of  them  remained  at  a  Philadelphia  hotel 
overnight.  Mr.  Towse  returned  to  New  York  on  a  mid- 
night train,  took  a  cold  bath,  wrote  a  criticism  of  nearly 
two  columns,  and  visiting  the  office  at  dawn,  had  It  put 
into  type.  Proofs  were  ready  when  the  editors  arrived, 
and  Godkin  was  so  pleased  that  he  for  once  unbent  and 
sent  an  appreciative  note. 

Once  in  the  nineties,  Godkin  even  praised  the  reporters, 
though  not  for  anything  they  had  written.     It  happened 


A  FIGHTING  EDITOR  529 

that  a  grand  jury  refused  an  Indictment  in  a  political 
case,  under  circumstances  that  pointed  to  collusion  be- 
tween several  jurors  and  the  accused  politician.  Godkin 
gave  utterance  to  these  suspicions,  showed  that  several 
jurymen  were  of  evil  character,  and  declared  that  one 
had  been  the  proprietor  of  a  low  dive  in  which  a  shooting 
brawl  had  occurred.  The  juror  promptly  had  him  in- 
dicted for  criminal  libel,  and  when  counsel  undertook  the 
case,  they  found  that  no  legal  proof  existed  of  the  alleged 
brawl.  In  desperation,  Godkin  appealed  to  the  head  of 
the  Byrnes  Detective  Bureau,  a  personal  friend,  for  help, 
and  Byrnes  made  a  thorough  investigation  of  the  juror's 
past,  without  avail.  He  urged  the  editor  to  compromise 
the  case,  and  offered  his  help  for  that  purpose.  Mean- 
while, the  Evening  Post  reporters  had  been  ransacking 
the  loft  of  the  old  Mott  Street  police  headquarters,  where 
station  house  blotters  were  stored.  At  the  end  of  a  seven 
days'  search,  they  found  an  entry  telling  of  the  shooting 
affray.  The  entry  was  photographed,  Godkin  appeared 
before  another  grand  jury,  waved  the  photograph  in  the 
face  of  the  district  attorney,  and  was  vindicated.  "His 
appreciation  of  the  work  done  by  the  city  staff  was  ex- 
pressed that  day  with  Irish  enthusiasm,"  says  Mr. 
Wright. 

On  the  other  hand,  Godkin  was  quick — even  savagely 
so — to  descend  upon  any  man  whose  writing  did  not 
accord  with  his  positive  ideas  regarding  good  journalism. 
His  severity  In  dealing  with  an  error  of  fact,  proportion, 
or  taste  grew  out  of  his  rapt  intensity  In  his  own  work. 
He  pushed  blunderers  out  of  his  way  less  because  he  was 
tactless — though  he  was  often  that — than  because  he  was 
engrossed  in  hewing  to  the  line.  Lincoln  Steffens,  one 
of  the  best  newspaper  men  New  York  ever  had,  happened 
to  write  a  simple  account  of  a  music  teacher's  death  under 
distressing  circumstances,  which  appeared  on  the  first 
page.  Godkin  read  it,  leaped  to  the  conclusion  that  It 
smacked  of  the  sensationalism  he  was  always  denouncing, 
and  declared  that  Steffens  ought  to  be  instantly  dismissed. 
Mr.  Wright  protested,  and  the  controversy  brought  in 


530  THE  EVENING  POST 

Mr.  Garrison,  who  roundly  asserted  that  the  story  was 
not  only  permissible,  but  admirable — whereupon  Godkin 
yielded.  Some  remarkable  work  by  Hapgood  in  report- 
ing the  meetings  of  the  illiterate  Board  of  Education  at- 
tracted Godkin's  eye  and  editorial  notice;  but  the  one 
message  he  sent  Hapgood  was  that  he  wanted  him  to 
confine  himself  to  narration  and  description,  avoiding 
comment.  New  York  has  never  had  a  more  expert  music 
critic  than  Mr.  Finck,  but  Godkin  sometimes  censured 
him  severely  for  what  he  thought  intemperate  writing. 
Godkin  would  have  been  a  greater  journalist  had  he 
taken  a  broad  and  human  interest  in  other  departments  of 
the  newspaper  than  his  own;  and  the  Evening  Post  might 
have  had  a  different  history.  It  would  have  been  less 
open  to  the  reproach  leveled  against  it,  of  being  rather 
a  magazine  than  a  newspaper.  Its  circulation,  instead  of 
hovering  uncertainly  between  14,000  and  20,000,  might 
have  become  extensive.  The  stone  wall  that  was  kept 
standing  between  editorial  rooms  and  news  rooms  was 
good  for  neither.  Mr.  Godkin's  lack  of  broad  cordiality 
and  interest  was  not  felt  by  those  in  daily  contact  with 
him,  but  it  was  often  felt  by  those  at  the  outer  desks. 
Any  newspaper  must  suffer  if  departmental  members 
work  as  some  did  on  the  Post,  to  avoid  censure  and  not 
to  gain  praise,  for  in  such  work  there  can  be  no  initiative. 
There  were  employees  who,  in  making  decisions,  would 
take  no  chance  of  doing  anything  the  editor  would  not 
like,  and  were  hence  hostile  to  any  innovation.  ''What  I 
did  not  like  and  still  resent  somewhat,"  says  Lincoln 
Steffens,  "is  that  he  objected  to  individuality  in  report- 
ing." The  newspaper  was  made  too  much  for  Godkin, 
too  little  for  outside  readers. 

II 

Yet  Godkin's  defects  as  a  general  journalist  only  throw 
into  clearer  relief  his  distinction  as  a  molder  of  opinion. 
The  Evening  Post  was  quite  enough  of  a  newspaper  to 
be  a  vehicle  for  his  editorial  page,  and  for  him  that  suf- 
ficed.   He  had  no  wish  to  appeal  directly  to  several  hun- 


A  FIGHTING  EDITOR  531 

dred  thousand  subscribers,  to  reach  the  ear  of  the  masses, 
as  Greeley  had  done.  Nothing  could  have  persuaded  him 
to  write  down  to  the  level  of  education  and  intelligence 
which  a  huge  audience  would  have  possessed.  Editorial 
utterances  could  be  quoted  to  show  that  he  thought  a 
daily  was  better  when  it  appealed  to  comparatively  small 
and  select  groups.  In  1889  he  deplored  the  nation-wide 
movement  for  reducing  newspaper  prices,  and  said  that 
the  Times  and  Tribune  had  been  better  at  four  cents  than 
they  were  at  two.  Godkin  spoke  to  the  cultivated  few — ^ 
to  university  scholars,  authors,  clergymen,  lawyers, 
physicians,  and  college  graduates  generally.  Though  at 
the  farthest  remove  from  pedantry  or  stiffness,  his  writ- 
ing, polished,  allusive,  with  a  keen  wit  or  irony  playing 
across  it,  required  a  cultured  understanding  for  its  full 
appreciation.  Addressing  himself  to  this  narrow  con- 
stituency, he  had  an  influence  easily  the  greatest  of  its 
kind  in  the  history  of  our  journalism. 

Foremost  among  the  qualities  which  gave  him  this 
power,  his  friend  of  many  years.  Prof.  A.  V.  Dicey, 
placed  his  gift  of  appositeness,  or  instinctive  discernment 
of  the  question  of  the  moment.  He  had  this  gift  as  clearly 
as  Greeley,  or  Cobbett.  His  editorial  page  was  kept 
constantly  focussed  upon  the  changing  issues  of  the  time. 
Godkin  had  no  desire  to  be  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilder- 
ness, and  knew  that  his  influence  would  be  lost  if  he  wrote 
about  international  arbitration  when  men  were  thinking 
of  the  tariff.  Prof.  Dicey  failed  to  add  that  he  often 
helped  powerfully  toward  putting  an  issue  in  the  fore- 
ground. In  1890  he  made  Tammany  a  burning  public 
question  months  before  the  city  campaign;  the  Post  was 
the  first  paper  to  show,  in  the  early  nineties,  that  a  con- 
test between  jingoes  and  lovers  of  peace  was  taking 
shape;  and  he  insisted  that  the  free  silver  battle  must  be 
fought  out  when  many  Republican  politicians  were  sneak- 
ing off  the  field.  He  knew  how  the  public  mind  was  mov- 
ing before  the  public  did.  Supplementary  to  his  gift 
for  appositeness  was  his  great  skill  in  reiteration.  No 
small  part  of  the  power  of  the  Evening  Post  and  Nation 


532  THE  EVENING  POST 

was  simply  a  powef  of  attrition.  Once  convinced  of  the 
justice  of  a  position,  he  was  always,  though  with  unfail- 
ing originality  and  freshness,  harping  upon  it.  This,  of 
course,  was  one  of  the  Post's  irritating  qualities  for  those 
who  disagreed. 

To  the  treatment  of  all  subjects  he  brought  a  compre- 
hensive and  cosmopolitan  knowledge  of  the  world.  He 
knew  more  than  any  other  American  editor  about  Europe 
because  his  personal  knowledge  of  Europe  ranged  from 
Belfast,  where  he  had  been  educated,  to  the  Bosporus. 
He  had  lived  in  Paris,  and  written  a  youthful  history  of 
Hungary;  when  Bryce  edited  the  Liberal  Party's  "Hand- 
book of  Home  Rule,"  he  was  the  only  writer  allotted  two 
articles  in  it;  he  had  many  correspondents  abroad,  and 
in  his  later  years  spent  long  periods  there.  In  this 
country  he  had  seen  much  of  ante-bellum  and  post-bellum 
society.  Though  a  constant  student,  he  learned  only  less 
from  his  intercourse  with  men  of  distinction,  from  Boston 
to  Washington,  than  from  books.  His  acquisitions  re- 
garding government,  international  affairs,  politics,  eco- 
nomics, and  law  gave  him  a  clear  advantage  over  even 
journalists  like  John  Hay  and  Whitelaw  Reid.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  was  handicapped  by  knowing  compara- 
tively little  of  the  great  common  people,  the  unintellectual 
workers,  from  whose  ranks  Greeley,  Bennett,  and  Ray- 
mond sprang.  His  Irish  humor  and  sociability  gave  him 
some  friends  among  them,  but  only  a  few. 

Of  his  style  it  is  easy  to  form  a  misapprehension.  It 
was  incisive,  graphic,  and  pithy.  But  at  all  times  it  was 
simple,  without  the  least  straining  for  effect;  he  indulged 
in  no  rhetoric,  he  did  not  excel  in  epigram,  as  did  Dana, 
and  he  had  no  desire  to  be  brilliant  in  the  sense  of  merely 
clever.  It  is  true  that  one  can  easily  find  epigrams  and 
witty  flashes.  On  one  occasion  of  much  waving  of  the 
bloody  shirt,  he  spoke  of  the  rumors  that  there  would  be 
another  war  between  North  and  South,  the  former  led  by 
Grant,  Sherman,  and  Sheridan,  the  latter  by  Tom,  Dick, 
and  Harry.  "There  are  reports  from  Washington,"  he 
wrote  the  fall  of  1898,  "that  Hanna  has  told  Duty  to  tell 


A  FIGHTING  EDITOR  533 

Destiny  to  tell  the  President  to  keep  the  Philippines.  We 
doubt  it.  We  believe  Destiny  will  lie  low  and  say  nothing 
till  after  election."  He  could  condense  an  editorial  into 
a  single  sentence.  When  Henry  George,  an  ardent  advo- 
cate of  the  confiscation  of  landed  property,  traveled  in 
Ireland  in  the  eighties,  Godkin  wrote :  ''A  spark  is  in  it- 
self a  harmless,  pretty,  and  even  useful  thing,  but  a  spark 
in  a  powder  magazine  is  mischief  in  its  most  malignant 
form."  But  the  prevailing  tone  of  his  writings  has  been 
well  said  to  be  that  "of  an  accomplished  gentleman  con- 
versing with  a  set  of  intimates  at  his  club."  The  thought- 
ful, neatly-put  flow  of  argument  or  exposition  was  con- 
stantly lighted  up  by  humor,  and  often  varied  by  irony 
or  invective. 

The  humor  was  always  spontaneous,  and  could  be 
either  genial  or  scorching.  He  had  a  remarkable  faculty 
for  humorous  imagery.  It  was  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world  for  him  to  compare  the  Tammany  panic  over 
the  Evening  Post  biographies  with  the  introduction  of  a 
ferret  into  a  rat  cellar.  Sometimes  the  image  was 
elaborate.  Thus,  to  show  the  folly  of  saddling  the  Presi- 
dent with  the  appointment  of  thousands  of  postmasters, 
he  wrote  of  "The  President  as  Sheik,"  comparing  him 
with  the  Arab  chief  who  sat  under  the  big  tree  outside  the 
city  gate,  ordering  the  bazaar  thief  to  jail,  hearing  what 
the  widow  said  of  the  knavish  baker,  and  giving  the  good 
public  official  a  robe  of  honor.  When  Cleveland's  friends 
explained  his  Venezuela  message  by  the  theory  that  he 
was  forestalling  a  warlike  message  by  Congress,  Godkin 
remarked:  "Foreseeing  that  Congress  would  shortly  get 
drunk,  he  determined  by  way  of  cure  to  anticipate  their 
bout  by  one  of  his  own,  feeling  that  his  own  recovery 
would  be  speedier  and  less  costly  than  theirs.  But  the 
result  was  that  they  joined  in  his  carouse,  and  they  both 
went  to  work  to  smash  the  national  furniture  and 
crockery." 

Of  his  unequalled  gift  for  compressing  a  homily  into  a 
humorous  or  ironical  paragraph  two  examples  will  suf- 
fice, both  written  with  typical  gusto : 


534  THE  EVENING  POST 

The  scenes  attending  the  burial  of  the  late  Jesse  James  on 
Thursday,  at  Kearney,  Mo.,  were  very  affecting.  Crowds  of 
people  flocked  together  from  all  parts  of  the  State  to  get  a  last 
sight  of  the  dead  bandit,  who  had  done  so  much  to  enable  them 
to  lead  what  they  call  in  Boston  **fuH"  lives.  Mrs.  Samuels, 
Jesse's  rriother,  was  on  the  ground  early,  and  talked  without 
reserve  to  everyone.  Her  conversation  naturally,  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, was  colored  with  deep  religious  feeling,  and  she  said 
to  a  reporter,  who  in  his  shy  way  ventured  to  express  his  sym- 
pathy with  her  bereavement,  "I  knew  it  had  to  come ;  but  my  dear 
boy  Jesse  is  better  off  in  heaven  today  than  he  would  be  here  with 
us" — a  sentiment  from  which  no  one  will  be  likely  to  dissent. 
The  officiating  clergyman  with  much  tact  avoided  dwelling  on  the 
life  and  character  of  the  deceased,  and  improved  the  occasion  by 
enlarging  upon  Jesse's  chance  of  future  improvement  in  Paradise, 
in  a  manner  that  would  probably  have  struck  Mr.  James  himself 
as  rather  mawkish.  The  widespread  belief  in  the  West  that  he 
has  gone  straight  to  heaven  is  a  touching  indication  of  the  general 
softening  of   religious   doctrines.      (April,    1882.) 


The  anarchists  had  a  picnic  on  Sunday  at  Weehawken  Heights 
.  .  .  An  entrance  fee  of  25  cents  was  required  to  gain  admission  to 
the  picnic.  A  practical  anarchist  came  along  and  attempted  to 
enter  without  paying  the  fee.  Some  accounts  say  that  he  was  a 
policeman  in  citizens'  clothes,  but  this  is  immaterial  from  the 
anarchists'  point  of  view,  however  important  it  may  be  in  a 
Jersey  court  of  justice.  True  anarchy  required  that  the  man 
should  enter  without  paying,  especially  if  there  was  any  regula- 
tion requiring  pay.  Taking  toll  at  the  gate  is  only  one  of  the 
forms  of  law  and  order  which  anarchy  rails  at  and  seeks  to 
abolish.  .  .  .  The  gatekeeper  called  for  help  and  some  of  his 
minions  came  forward  w^ith  pickets  hastily  torn  from  the  fence, 
and  began  beating  the  practical  man  over  the  head.  Then  the 
crowd  outside  began  to  throw  stones  at  the  crowd  inside,  and  the 
latter  retorted  in  kind.  A  few  pistols  were  fired,  and  one  boy 
was  shot  through  the  hand.  The  meeting  was  a  great  success  in 
the  way  of  promoting  practical  anarchy,  the  rioting  being  pro- 
tracted to  a  late  hour  in  the  afternoon.  Anarchy,  like  charity, 
should  always  begin   at  home.      (June,    1887.) 

As  these  paragraphs  suggest,  Godkin  was  a  master  of 
that  two-edged  editorial  weapon,  irony,  which  in  clumsy 
hands  may  mortally  wound  the  user.    But  his  most  superb 


A  FIGHTING  EDITOR  535 

writing  was  that  In  which  he  delivered  a  straightforward 
attack  upon  some  evil  Institution  or  person.  His  Irish 
sense  for  epithet  enabled  him  to  pierce  the  hide  of  the 
toughest  pachyderms  In  Tammany;  his  caustic  character- 
ization could  make  an  ordinary  opponent  wither  up  like 
a  leaf  touched  with  vitriol.  One  of  his  younger  associates 
once  found  a  man  of  prominence  sick  In  bed  from  the  pain 
and  mortification  an  attack  by  Godkin  had  given  him. 

When  Don  Piatt  asked  the  elder  Bowles  to  define  the 
essential  qualities  of  an  editor,  the  latter  replied,  "Brains 
and  ugliness,"  meaning  by  the  last  word  love  of  combat. 
Godkin  had  a  truly  Celtic  zest  for  battle.  Mr.  Bishop 
declares  that  nothing  Interested  him  more  than  what  he 
called  ''journalistic  rows."  Great  was  his  delight,  for 
example,  when  the  Times  and  Sun  clashed  over  an  ex- 
ploring expedition  the  former  sent  to  Alaska,  the  Sun 
remarking  that  it  was  appropriate  to  name  a  certain 
river  after  Editor  Jones  of  the  Times  because  it  was 
preternaturally  shallow  and  muddy,  and  discolored  the 
sea  for  miles  from  its  mouth,  and  the  Times  attacking 
Dana  for  "the  calculated  malice  of  splenetic  age."  God- 
kin had  an  irresistible  desire  to  mingle  in  such  shindies. 
Once  in,  he  would  read  all  the  harsh  criticism  offered  of 
him,  and  fairly  radiating  his  pleasure,  would  say :  "What 
a  delightful  lot  they  are !  We  must  stir  them  up  again  I" 
His  gusto  in  attacking  Tammany  was  evident  to  every 
reader.  In  each  Presidential  election  he  carried  the  war 
into  the  enemy's  country  with  a  rush,  and  printed  three 
editorials  attacking  the  other  candidate  to  every  one  ad- 
vocating his  own.  On  one  of  his  return  trips  from  Europe 
he  and  the  other  passengers  of  the  Normanna  were  held 
in  quarantine  because  of  a  cholera  scare  and  finally  car- 
ried down  to  Fire  Island  for  a  prolonged  stay  under  con- 
ditions of  great  discomfort.  His  letters  to  the  Evening 
Post  were  delightfully  scorching,  he  kept  up  the  attack 
till  the  quarantine  officers  were  panic-stricken,  and  he 
demolished  their  last  defense  in  an  article  In  the  North 
American  Review  that  is  a  masterpiece  of  destructiveness. 

Godkin  was  at  pains  to  state  his  belief  that  attacks 


536  THE  EVENING  POST 

upon  any  evil  should  be  as  concrete  and  personal  as  pos- 
sible. As  he  said,  there  was  no  point  in  writing  flowery 
descriptions  of  the  Upright  Judge,  or  indignant  denuncia- 
tions of  Judicial  Corruption.  The  proper  course  was 
to  show  by  book  and  chapter  the  misdeeds  or  incompe- 
tence of  Tammany  judges  like  Maynard,  Barnard,  and 
Cardozo,  and  chase  them  from  the  bench.  For  one  per- 
son Interested  In  an  assault  on  poor  quarantine  regula- 
tions,-ten  would  be  Interested  in  an  assault  on  Dr.  Jenkins, 
the  quarantine  head.  Godkin  had  his  own  Ananias  Club. 
His  attacks  on  the  Knights  of  Labor  always  included  some 
hearty  thrusts  at  their  chief,  Powderly.  His  hatred  of 
the  pensions  grabbing  led  him  to  make  a  close  investiga- 
tion of  the  record  of  the  most  notorious  grabber  of  all, 
Corporal  Tanner,  the  man  who  said,  "God  help  the 
Surplus!"  when  he  became  Pensions  Commissioner.  The 
editor  took  prodigious  pleasure  In  exposing  Tanner  as  a 
noisy  fellow  who  had  lost  his  leg  from  a  stray  shot  while, 
a  straggler  from  his  regiment,  he  was  lying  under  an 
apple  tree  reading  In  what  he  thought  a  safe  place. 

Godkin  was  well  aware  that  both  his  humor  and  his 
belligerency  sometimes  carried  him  beyond  the  mark. 
More  than  once  he  assigned  a  topic  to  a  subordinate, 
saying,  'Td  do  it,  but  I  don't  trust  my  discretion."  In 
the  heat  of  the  Blaine  campaign  he  wrote  a  paragraph 
stating  a  charge  that  was  quite  unfounded,  and  went 
home;  luckily  his  associates  saw  It  early,  recognized  that 
It  would  damage  their  cause,  and  substituted  another 
before  the  forms  closed.  Next  day  Godkin  was  effusive 
In  his  gratitude.  It  is  recalled  that  once  the  editorial 
staff  objected  stubbornly  to  part  of  one  of  his  editorials, 
and  after  protracted  argument,  he  consented  to  delete  It. 
When  the  next  edition  appeared  with  the  offending 
passage  still  there,  he  was  excited  and  furious,  and  called 
the  foreman  of  the  composing  room  down  to  explain  why 
his  orders  for  killing  it  had  not  been  obeyed.  The  fore- 
man protested  that  he  had  received  no  such  orders.  Know- 
ing associates  at  once  went  to  Mr.  Godkin's  desk,  and 
found  that  he  had  written  them  out  and  absently  tossed 


A  FIGHTING  EDITOR  537 

them  Into  the  waste  basket.  But  Godkln's  occasional 
excesses  of  temper  were  the  defect  of  a  rare  virtue.  A 
capacity  for  righteous  anger  like  his  Is  all  too  uncommon 
in  journalism,  the  pulpit,  or  public  life  generally.  Roose- 
velt never  forgave  Godkin  for  the  unvarying  contempt 
and  bitterness,  the  unwearied  bluntness  of  accusation, 
with  which  he  wrote  of  Quay;  but  who  that  knows  what 
Quay  was  would  say  that  the  editor  showed  a  jot  too 
much  harshness? 

Godkin  was  reared  In  the  faith  of  Manchester  Liber- 
alism, and  his  main  principles  were  of  that  school  to  the 
end.  At  his  college  (Queens',  Belfast),  he  tells  us,  "John 
Stuart  Mill  was  our  prophet,  and  Grote  and  Bentham 
were  our  daily  food.  In  fact,  the  late  Neilson  Hancock, 
who  was  our  professor  of  political  economy  and  juris- 
prudence, made  Bentham  his  textbook.  ...  I  and  my 
friends  were  filled  with  the  teachings  of  the  laissez-faire 
school  and  had  no  doubt  that  its  recent  triumph  in  the 
abolition  of  the  Corn  Laws  was  sure  to  lead  to  wider 
ones  in  other  countries." 

When  he  came  to  America,  he  brought  with  him  all  the 
rooted  opposition  of  the  Manchester  school  to  protection 
and  state  subsidy.  He  shared  not  only  Mill's  and  Cob- 
den's  belief  in  free  trade,  but  their  detestation  of  war, 
reenforced  by  his  own  Crimean  experiences.  Like  Mill, 
he  was  a  warm  advocate  of  colonial  autonomy  and  the 
general  spread  of  political  freedom.  In  his  last  years, 
he  declared  that  he  had  always  believed  "that  the  Irish 
people  should  learn  self-government  in  the  way  In  which 
the  English  have  learned  it,  and  the  Americans  have 
learned  It;  in  which,  only,  any  race  can  learn  it — by  prac- 
ticing it."  He  was  long  a  believer  in  minority  or  propor- 
tional representation,  naming  It  in  1870  as  one  of  the 
three  great  objects  of  the  Nation.  Another  of  these  ob- 
jects, civil  service  reform,  he  took  up  just  after  the  Civil 
War,  struck  by  the  contrast  between  our  corrupt  and  in- 
competent administrative  system  and  the  efficient,  experi- 
enced British  civil  service.  The  introduction  of  the 
Australian  ballot,  the  enactment  of  better  election  laws, 


53S  THE  EVENING  POST 

the  reform  of  municipal  government,  were  prominently 
pushed  forward  by  Godkln.  He  thoroughly  agreed  with 
the  Manchester  jealousy  of  government  interference  in 
economic  and  industrial  affairs,  holding  that  unless  re- 
quired by  some  great  and  general  good,  it  was  a  certain 
evil. 

These  were  Godkin's  principles,  and  by  principles  he 
always  steered  his  course.  Greeley  often  did  not  know 
his  own  mind,  Bennett  and  Dana  had  little  regard  for 
principle,  but  Godkin  always  held  fixed  objects  before 
him..  A  contemporary  historian,  Harry  Thurston  Peck,  in 
^'Twenty  Years  of  the  Republic,"  writes:  "It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  nearly  all  the  most  important  questions 
of  American  pohtical  history  from  1881  to  1896  got  their 
first  public  hearing  largely  through  the  influence  of  Mr. 
Godkin."  That  is  an  exaggeration,  but  an  exaggeration 
made  possible  by  his  tenacious  championship  of  a  dozen 
causes  at  a  time  when  general  opinion  was  interested  but 
skeptical.  To  be  sure,  the  ingrained  nature  of  some  of 
his  principal  doctrines  was  a  limitation.  It  prevented  him 
from  being  a  powerfully  original  thinker  in  the  field  of 
government  and  politics.  He  taught  our  intellectual  pub- 
lic lessons  which  he  had  learned  from  the  more  advanced 
practice  and  thought  of  Great  Britain,  and  far  beyond 
that  he  did  not  go.  But  this  limitation  can  easily  be  ex- 
aggerated. He  was  an  omnivorous  reader,  his  curiosity 
In  new  ideas  and  movements  was  intense,  and  he  had  a 
really  open  mind. 

In  most  ways  he  kept  quite  abreast  of  the  times,  and 
in  some  well  ahead  of  it.  He  looked  much  farther  than 
the  ordinary  liberal  into  the  relationship  between  power- 
ful nations  and  the  weaker  or  inferior  peoples,  for  he  per- 
ceived the  affinities  between  economic  conquest  and  politi- 
cal conquest.  His  editorials  upon  intervention  In  Egypt 
in  1882  show  that  he  had  no  patience  with  the  view  that 
one  government  might  bully  another  to  protect  the  in- 
vestments of  its  nationals.  He  did  believe  that  British 
intervention  was  justified  upon  other  grounds,  and  always 
maintained  that  Cromer's  rule  there,  like  English  rule 


A  FIGHTING  EDITOR  539 

in  India,  was  a  boon  to  the  native  and  the  world.  But  in 
Africa,  Asia,  and  in  Cuba,  he  was  always  angered  by  any 
evidence  that  selfish  interests — traders,  coal  concession- 
aires, investors — were  using  a  strong  government  as  a 
catspaw  to  menace  or  subvert  a  weak  one. 

His  writings  upon  capitalism  show  a  steady  develop- 
ment of  ideas.  He  objected  to  demagoguish  attacks  upon 
Capital,  a  word  which  he  disliked,  saying  that  if  people 
called  it  Savings  they  would  have  fewer  misconceptions. 
But  he  was  no  more  inclined  to  defend  abuses  by  capital 
than  abuses  by  labor.  He  argued  for  the  creation  of  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission  in  his  first  year  with 
the  Post.  He  was  more  and  more  alarmed  by  the  trusts, 
both  as  instruments  of  economic  oppression,  and  as  dan- 
gerous influences  upon  the  government.  He  wanted  evil 
combinations  sharply  attacked  and  broken  up — not  "reg- 
ulated"— to  prevent  monopoly,  and  in  later  years  much 
of  his  zeal  in  attacking  the  high  tariff  sprang  from  his 
conviction  that  it  and  the  trusts  Were  mutual  supports. 
No  one  inveighed  more  constantly  than  he  against  ill- 
gotten  wealth,  or  against  the  abuse  of  money  power.  His 
editorial  on  the  death  of  Peter  Cooper,  who  used  to  boast 
that  he  never  made  a  dollar  he  could  not  take  up  to  the 
Great  White  Throne,  was  one  of  a  long  series  of  argu- 
ments for  a  public  sentiment  that  would  distinguish  be- 
tween honest  success  and  dishonest  "success,"  between 
Peter  Cooper  and  Jay  Gould.  The  chief  peril  to  the  re- 
public, he  wrote  in  1886,  was  worship  of  wealth: 

It  is  here  that  our  greatest  danger  lies.  The  popular  hero 'to- 
day, whom  our  young  men  in  cities  most  admire  and  would 
soonest  imitate,  is  neither  the  saint,  the  sage,  the  scholar,  the 
soldier,  nor  the  statesman,  but  the  successful  stock-gambler. 
Stocks  and  bonds  are  the  commonest  of  our  dinner-table  topics. 
The  man  we  show  with  most  pride  to  foreigners  is  the  man  who 
has  made  most  millions.  Our  wisest  men  are  those  who  can 
draw  the  biggest  checks;  and — what  is  worst  of  all — there  is  a 
growing  tendency  to  believe  that  everybody  is  entitled  to  what- 
ever he  can  buy,  from  the  Presidency  down  to  a  street-railroad 
franchise. 


540  THE  EVENING  POST 

Godkin  was  a  keen-eyed  social  observer,  discussing 
thoughtfully  a  multitude  of  topics  affecting  the  daily  life 
and  culture  of  the  people.  He  did  not  believe  in  prohi- 
bition, arguing  throughout  his  editorship  against  the 
Maine  law.  But  he  did  recognize  in  the  saloon  an' 
enormous  evil,  politically  and  socially,  he  wanted  it  les- 
sened by  high  licenses,  and  utterances  could  be  quoted 
which  suggest  that  he  might  ultimately  have  accepted 
even  prohibition  as  better  than  the  saloon's  continuance. 
He  disbelieved  in  woman  suffrage  for  two  principal  rea- 
sons, because  he  feared  it  would  further  debase  the  gov- 
ernment of  our  large  cities,  and  because  the  great  ma- 
jority of  women  in  his  day  were  indifferent  to  it.  On 
social  abuses  of  all  kinds  he  used  the  lash  unsparingly. 
His  campaign  against  public  spitting,  upon  grounds  of 
sanitation  as  well  as  cleanliness,  was  potent  in  abolishing 
the  spittoon.  For  years  he  kept  up  a  vigorous  effort  to 
shame  the  South  out  of  its  tolerant  attitude  toward  homi- 
cide. He  had  been  shocked  by  this  attitude  when  he 
traveled  in  the  South  in  1856-57,  and  the  war  and  Re- 
construction had  made  it  worse.  His  method  was  char- 
acteristic. Every  time  one  Southerner  shot  another  be- 
cause of  a  quarrel  over  a  dog,  or  a  rail  fence,  or  a  hasty 
word — which  was  every  few  days — he  wrote  an  editorial 
paragraph  recounting  the  circumstances,  with  ironic  com- 
ment. He  dwelt  upon  the  bloody  details,  the  "gloom" 
that  pervaded  the  community,  and  the  certainty  that 
nothing  would  be  done  to  bring  the  murderer  to  trial. 
For  several  years  early  in  the  eighties  this  campaign  gave 
the  editorial  page  of  the  Post  a  decided  mortuary  flavor. 
Part  of  the  Southern  press  was  enraged,  declaring  that 
the  Post  was  maliciously  attempting  to  prevent  emigra- 
tion southward;  but  it  got  below  the  skin  of  the  section 
with  salutary  effect. 

Certain  of  Godkin's  utterances  upon  labor  problems 
show  the  unfortunate  effect  of  part  of  his  early  training. 
They  had  not  only  the  fallacies  of  the  laissez  faire  posi- 
tion, but  were  harshly  put.  He  had  a  way  of  speaking  of 
workmen,    when    they   displeased   hini)    as    ^'ignorant,'* 


A  FIGHTING  EDITOR  541 

*'Idle,"  "reckless,"  indicting  them  en  masse.  In  1887, 
writing  contemptuously  of  a  strike  "of  coalheavers,  long- 
shoremen, and  the  like,"  he  spoke  of  the  men  who  respond 
to  labor  agitators  as  "a  large,  passionate,  ignorant,  and 
through  their  ignorance,  very  discontented  and  uncom- 
fortable constituency."  For  years  in  the  eighties,  when 
labor  was  struggling  toward  effective  organization,  he 
declared  that  its  agitators  were  producing  a  cowardice 
among  politicians,  ministers,  and  philanthropists  like  that 
the  slavery  leaders  produced  before  the  Civil  War.  He 
was  one  of  those  who  thought  the  early  career  of  Prof. 
Richard  T.  Ely  dangerously  incendiary.  He  repeatedly 
denied  that  strikers  had  the  right  to  post  pickets  around 
an  employer's  premises.  He  denied  them  the  right  to 
accuse  an  employer  of  paying  an  unjust  wage,  or  taking 
an  undue  share  of  profits,  saying  that  a  strike  should  be 
regarded  as  "a  simple  failure  of  business  men  to  agree 
to  a  bargain"  (May,  1886).  Labor  was  guilty  of  many 
crimes  and  abuses,  from  dynamiting  to  boycotts,  in  those 
days.  But  it  would  be  hard  to  find  a  more  unfair  state- 
ment of  the  labor  movement,  1 876-1 896,  than  Godkin 
wrote  in  the  latter  year  (Sept.  2)  : 

Labor  as  a  ^'question"  was  twenty  years  ago  new  in  America. 
...  It  gradually  grew  in  political  and  social  importance.  Pol- 
iticians began  to  preach  that  employers  were  great  rascals  if  they 
did  not  allow  laborers  to  stay  in  their  service  on  their  own  terms. 
They  were  backed  up  by  a  swarm  of  "ethical"  economists  and 
clergymen  all  over  the  country,  who  found  something  hideously 
wrong  in  the  existing  state  of  society,  and  proclaimed  the  obliga- 
tion, not  simply  of  the  employer,  but  of  the  state  and  society,  to 
do  all  sorts  of  nice  things  for  the  laborer;  to  carry  him  about  for 
nothing,  to  pay  him  for  his  labor  what  he  should  judge  to  be 
sufficient,  to  provide  all  sorts  of  comforts  and  luxuries  for  him  at 
the  public  expense,  on  what  was  called  "broad  public  grounds." 
This  insanity  raged  for  several  years.  It  was  preached  from  thou- 
sands of  pulpits.  "Papers"  were  read  on  it  at  all  sorts  of  clubs, 
societies,  and  reunions,  showing  the  wrongs  done  to  the  manual 
laborer  by  everybody  else.  Under  its  influence  Powderly  and  his 
Knights  of  Labor  grew  into  a  great  power.  .  .  . 

This  particular  "craze"  lasted  till  the  Chicago  riots  of  1893, 


542  THE  EVENING  POST 

and  the  appearance  on  the  scene  of  Altgeld  as  the  Governor  of  a 
great  State.  People  then  saw  the  fruits  of  their  teaching.  Large 
bodies  of  ignorant  and  thoughtless  men  had  believed  it  and  acted 
on  it.  In  order  to  settle  a  small  dispute  between  a  sleeping  car 
company  and  its  men,  they  determined  to  suspend  locomotion 
throughout  the  business  regions  of  a  great  nation.  They  believed 
they  were  in  the  right.  If  the  account  given  of  labor  by  the  clergy- 
men and  ethical  economists  were  true,  they  had  the  right  to  do 
what  they  were  doing.  For  some  days  the  government  of  the 
United  States  seemed  to  be  suspended.  But  when  one  courageous 
man  stepped  to  the  front,  and  said  this  nonsense  should  cease,  it 
suddenly  stopped.  The  sermons  and  "papers"  and  ethical  economy 
stopped  too. 

Godkin  rejoiced  when  the  Knights  of  Labor  dis- 
integrated, and  said  nothing  in  praise  of  the  work  it  did 
in  clearing  the  ground  for  the  A.  F.  of  L.,  or  in  hastening 
the  eight-hour  day,  the  abolition  of  contract  labor,  and 
the  establishment  of  labor  bureaus.  A  similar  want  of 
sympathy  was  evident  in  much  he  wrote  of  the  farmers. 
In  fact,  he  imbibed  with  his  British  training  a  strong 
consciousness  of  class,  which  made  him  speak  of  manual 
workers  and  small  tradesmen  as  inferiors.  An  editorial 
deprecating  a  liberal  education  for  children  of  the  poor, 
easily  accessible  in  files  of  the  Nation  (Dec.  23,  1886) 
is  a  curious  example  of  his  inability  to  understand  the 
American  denial  of  any  permanent  class  lines.  As  a 
good  liberal,  he  believed  that  labor  must  be  strongly  or- 
ganized, but  if  he  had  any  real  feeling  for  it,  it  seldom 
appeared.  He  was  a  philosophic  democrat,  but  not  a 
practical  democrat.  His  editorials,  joined  with  certain 
well-known  personal  traits — his  great  care  in  dress,  his 
fastidiousness  in  food,  his  intellectual  aloofness — led 
many  to  think  him  a  snob;  a  term  that  was  misleading, 
for  no  one  was  less  a  respecter  of  persons.  They  in- 
spired the  well-known  verses  of  McCready  Sykes,  be- 
ginning : 

Godkin  the  righteous,  known  of  old, 
Priest  of  the  nation's  moral  health, 
Within  whose  Post  we  daily  read 
The  Gospel  of  the  Rights  of  Wealth. 


A  FIGHTING  EDITOR  543 

In  denying  that  Godkin  was  a  pessimist,  we  must  not 
deny    that    he    was    sometimes    atrabilious.      Scattered 
through  his  letters  are  remarks  that  indicate  moods  of 
deep  discouragement.     "I  am  tired  of  having  to  be  con- 
tinually hopeful,"  he  wrote  after  the  election  of  1897,  and 
again  in  1899:  ''Our  present  political  condition  is  repulsive 
to  me."  It  was  his  business  to  be  censorious — to  make  the 
Nation,  as  Charles  Dudley  Warner  said,   "the  weekly 
judgment,  day."     But  as  Howells  writes,  practically  he 
was  one  of  the  most  hopeful  of  men,  for  he  was  always 
striving  to  make  a  bad  world  better.    He  deeply  resented 
the  charge  that  the  Evening  Post  was  merely  a  destructive 
critic,  and  used  to  challenge  any  one  to  cite  an  instance  in 
which  it  had  exposed  an  evil  without  suggesting  a  remedy.    ^  "" 
The  commotion  following  the  death  of  Garfield  brought 
from  him  a  notable  expression  of  faith  in  our  national 
stability.     He  recalled  that  the  same  calamity  had  oc- 
curred before,  when  the  country  was  in  the  midst  of  the 
greatest  convulsion  of  the  century,  with  a  million  troops 
under  arms,  a  colossal  debt,  and  terrible  problems  await- 
ing solution;    that  a  stubborn,  uneducated  man  had  be- 
come President,  and  for  three  years  had  quarreled  vio- 
lently with  Congress;  and  yet  that  all  had  ended  prosper- 
ously.   Mr.  Bishop  was  surprised  on  election  day,  in  1884, 
to  see  the  calm  serenity  with  which  Godkin  awaited  the 
result  of  the  Blaine-Cleveland  contest,  but  Godkin  re- 
marked, with  intense  conviction:    "I  have  been  sitting      ] 
here  for  twenty  years  and  more,  placing   faith  in  the     / 
American  people,  and  they  have  never  gone  back  on  me    ( 
yet,  and  I  do  not  believe  they  will  now."     He  himself     /     ^f 
used  to  laugh  at  the  talk  of  his  pessimism,  remarking  that    \         oJ 
when  he  lived  in  Cambridge,  people  said  that  he  and     \ 
Norton  were  accustomed  to  sit  at  night  and  talk  until  at      \ 
about  2  a.  m.  the  gloom  would  get  so  thick  that  all  the       I 
dogs  in  town  would  start  howling.  — ^ 

In  the  reminiscences  that  death  prevented  him  from 
expanding,  he  made  a  brief  survey  of  contemporary  Amer- 
ican civilization  in  a  tone  anything  but  discouraged.  He 
believed  that  in  government  the  United  States  had  lost 


544  THE  EVENING  POST 

ground.  The  people  cared  less  about  politics,  were  less 
instructed  regarding  administration,  and  had  allowed 
themselves  to  become  the  tools  of  the  bosses;  while  the 
old  race  of  great  statesmen  had  died  out.  He  also  thought 
that  the  press  had  ceased  to  have  much  influence  on  opin- 
ion, and  that  the  pulpit  had  become  singularly  demagogic. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  declared  that  the  advance  of  higher 
education,  qualitatively  and  quantitatively,  was  without  a 
parallel  in  all  previous  world  history.  "And,"  he  added, 
"the  progress  of  the  nation  generally  in  all  the  arts,  ex- 
cept that  of  government,  in  literature,  in  commerce,  in 
invention,  is  something  unprecedented,  and  becomes  daily 
more  astonishing." 

As  to  the  character  and  extent  of  Godkin's  influence 
there  is  no  uncertainty.  Exerted  directly  upon  the  leaders 
of  opinion,  it  was  felt  indirectly  by  the  whole  population. 
All  over  the  country  he  convinced  isolated  and  outstanding 
men,  who  in  turn  diffused  his  views  throughout  their  own 
communities.  No  man  who  once  fell  under  the  sway  of 
his  powerful  pen,  even  those  whom  he  intensely  irritated, 
could  quite  shake  it  off.  One  eminent  New  Yorker  was 
T  heard  to  call  the  Post  "that  pessimistic,  malignant,  and 
malevolent  sheet — which  no  good  citizen  ever  goes  to  bed 
without  reading!"  The  thinking  young  men  of  the  col- 
leges, and  many  outside  them,  accepted  his  utterances  as 
an  almost  infallible  guide.  No  public  man  was  indifferent 
to  them.  The  Evening  Post  and  Nation  long  exercised 
a  peculiar  sway  in  newspaper  oflfices  from  Maine  to  Cali- 
fornia. Gov.  David  B.  Hill  remarked  to  a  secretary 
during  the  fight  Godkin  was  waging  against  his  machine : 
"I  don't  care  anything  about  the  handful  of  Mugwumps 
who  read  it  in  New  York  City.  The  trouble  with  the 
damned  sheet  is  that  every  editor  in  New  York  State 
reads  it!"  It  was  a  Western  editor  who  said  that  only  a 
bold  newspaper  made  up  its  mind  on  any  new  issue  till  it 
saw  what  the  Post  had  to  say.  "For  years,"  a  Baltimore 
friend  wrote  Godkin  in  1899,  "I  have  noticed  your  edi- 
torials reappearing  unacknowledged,  a  little  changed  and 
somewhat  diluted,  but  still  with  their  original  integrity 


A  FIGHTING  EDITOR  545 

not  entirely  removed  from  them,  in  the  columns  of  other 
papers — a  course  of  Po5/-and-water  not  equal  to  the 
strong  meat  from  which  the  decoction  was  made,  but  still 
wholesome.  .  .  ."  Henry  Holt  wrote  the  editor  on  his 
retirement  that  he  had  taught  the  country  more  than  any 
other  man  in  it.  The  same  tribute  was  paid  him  by  Wil- 
liam James:  ''To  my  generation,  his  was  certainly  the 
towering  influence  in  all  thought  concerning  public  affairs, 
and  indirectly  his  influence  has  certainly  been  more  per- 
vasive than  that  of  any  other  writer  of  the  generation, 
for  he  influenced  other  writers  who  never  quoted  him,  and 
determined  the  whole  current  of  discussion." 

Such  verdicts,  from  such  men,  might  be  multiplied  to 
a  wearisome  length.  The  finest  spirits  of  the  time  recog- 
nized in  Godkin,  though  they  often  disagreed  with  him, 
though  the  disagreement  might  sometimes  be  violent,  the 
most  inspiring  force  in  American  journalism. 


CHAPTER  TWENTY-FIVE 

NEWS,    LITERATURE,    MUSIC,    AND    DRAMA,    1880-I9OO 

From  Godkln's  utterances  upon  journalism  a  small 
volume  might  easily  be  compiled.  His  ideal  of  a  news- 
paper was  as  much  English  as  American,  with  a  good  deal 
that  was  purely  Godkinian  superadded.  He  disliked 
headlines,  even  when  not  garish,  and  valued  the  headline 
merely  as  an  aid  to  reference.  He  insisted  upon  absolute 
accuracy.  Not  only  did  he  believe,  quite  properly,  that 
comment  had  no  place  in  a  news  story,  but  he  thought  any 
attempt  at  literary  effects  out  of  place  there — that  in- 
formation was  the  one  essential.  Recognizing  that  accu- 
racy often  requires  expert  knowledge,  he  always  insisted 
that  this  could  be  got  by  paying  for  it.  Absolute  integrity 
in  every  department  was  of  course  presupposed.  Murat 
Halstead  in  1889  told  the  Wisconsin  Press  Association 
that  he  saw  no  objection  if  readers  "should  find  out  that 
the  advertiser  occasionally  dictates  the  editorials."  "No 
objection  at  all  to  that,"  rejoined  Godkin;  "the  objection 
is  when  they  don't  find  it  out." 

During  the  eighties  Dana  and  the  Sun  represented  to 
Godkin  nearly  all  that  was  evil  in  New  York  journalism, 
and  the  exchanges  between  the  two  editors  were  often 
bitter.  Neither  appreciated  the  other's  qualities.  Every- 
one remembers  Mrs.  Frederick  P.  Bellamy's  explanation 
of  the  depravity  of  New  York:  "What  can  you  expect 
~~^  of  a  city  in  which  every  morning  the  Stm  makes  vice  at- 
tractive, and  every  night  the  Post  makes  virtue  odious?" 
Dana  found  Godkin  the  one  antagonist  who  could  make 
him  wince,  and  struck  back  hard.  He  persisted  in  calling 
the  editor  "Larry."  He  never  tired  of  exaggerating  the 
Post's  staidness.  When  it  changed  its  form  in  1887,  he 
wrote  that  it  would  now  be  dull  in  sixteen  pages  instead 
of  eight.    After   one   of   the   East   River   bridges   was 

546 


NEWS,  LITERATURE,  MUSIC,  DRAMA  547 

opened,  he  described  the  testing  of  the  structure  at  length ; 
how  wagons  of  stone,  trucks  of  metal,  and  ponderous 
engines  were  trundled  across  It,  and  finally,  as  the  supreme 
burden,  a  cart  bearing  a  copy  of  the  Evening  Post.  When 
S.  J.  Randall  died,  and  the  Post  spoke  of  his  corrupting 
influence  upon  Congress,  Dana  seized  the  opportunity  to 
characterize  Godkin  as  "a  scurrilous  editor  known  to  the 
police  courts  of  this  town  as  a  libeler  of  the  living,  and 
who  Is  known  now  as  a  defamer  of  the  dead." 

What  Godkin  principally  objected  to  in  the  Sun,  of 
course,  was  Dana's  cynical  defense  of  evils  and  his  opposi-< 
tion  to  a  long  list  of  good  causes.  Supposedly  a  Demo- 
crat, Dana  conceived  a  violent  and  Irrational  dislike  of 
Cleveland,  did  his  best  in  1884  to  defeat  him,  and  later 
never  missed  an  opportunity  to  attack  him  as  the  "Stuffed 
Prophet"  or  ''Perpetual  Candidate."  Supposedly  a  friend 
of  decency  In  the  city,  for  twenty  years  he  was  Tammany's 
staunchest  champion,  a  supporter  In  turn  of  Tweed's  as- 
sociates, of  Boss  Kelly,  of  Grant  and  Gllroy,  and  of 
Croker.  Standing  for  civil  service  reform  In  1876,  later 
he  attacked  and  ridiculed  reform  measures  unmercifully. 
Every  attempt  to  Improve  politics  elicited  a  burst  of  de- 
rision from  him.  The  perversity  of  his  course,  its  lack  of 
principle,  Godkin  repeatedly  exposed  in  columns  of  ex- 
tracts from  the  Sun  headed  "Semper  Fidells." 

But  he  objected  In  almost  equal  degree  to  the  Sun*s 
news  columns — to  the  space  they  gave  crime  and  scandal. 
Dana  used  to  say  that  whatever  God  allowed  to  happen 
he  would  allow  to  be  printed,  and  talked  of  giving  a  full 
picture  of  society.  How  far  this  creed  carried  him,  and 
how  caustically  Godkin  censured  It,  may  be  seen  from 
one  E'y^wfw^Poj/ paragraph  (Sept.  28,  1886)  : 

The  first  page  of  our  enterprising  contemporary,  the  Sun,  to- 
day was  an  interesting  picture  of  American  society.  The  first 
column  was  devoted  to  the  trial  of  a  minister  for  immorality,  to 
differences  between  a  man  named  Lynch  and  his  wife,  to  a  rape 
in  a  vacant  lot,  and  a  suicide.  The  second  was  half  given  to  a 
fire  and  the  death  of  a  blind  newsdealer,  the  other  half  to  politics. 
The  third  was  given  up  to  foreign  news  and  politics,  but  half  the 


548  THE  EVENING  POST 

fourth  was  taken  up  with  murder  in  a  buggy  and  the  escape  of 
two  convicts.  The  fifth  was  wholly  devoted  to  a  very  paying 
scandal  about  Lord  Lonsdale  and  Miss  Violet  Cameron,  and  a 
small  item  about  another  Lord  Lonsdale  and  twenty-four  chorus 
girls.  In  the  remaining  two,  we  find  the  disappearance  of  one 
Sniffers,  a  divorce,  two  pugilistic  items,  half  a  column  of  the  horse- 
whipping of  a  reporter  by  a  girl,  the  discovery  of  her  lover  in 
jail  by  Miss  Miller,  the  arrest  of  a  small  swindler,  and  a  few 
other  trifles.    As  a  microcosm,  the  page  is  not  often  surpassed.  .  .  . 

As  Godkin  said,  the  news  of  the  most  sensational 
papers  gave  ah  essentially  false  picture  of  American  so- 
ciety. Any  one  who  read  it  as  a  well-proportioned  picture 
of  what  was  happening  in  New  York  would  believe  that 
every  evening  about  10,000  betrayed  servant  girls,  horse- 
whipped faithless  lovers,  and  the  same  number  of  drunken 
husbands  murdered  wives  in  tenement  houses;  and  that 
the  bulk  of  the  population  was  daily  occupied  in  getting 
at  the  details  of  such  cases,  and  wanted  explanatory  illus- 
trations to  help  it,  such  as  diagrams  showing  just  where 
the  servant  girl  stood  when  she  struck  the  first  blow.  In 
a  true  picture,  such  incidents  would  get  a  few  lines. 

But  when  sensational  news  was  obtained  by  inventing 
it,  or  exaggerating  small  episodes,  or  heartless  intrusion 
into  private  affairs,  Godkin's  indignation  was  much 
greater.  His  opinion  of  this  phase  of  journalism  was 
precisely  that  which  Howells  expresses  of  Bartley  Hub- 
bard's unscrupulous  news-gathering  in  "A  Modern  In- 
stance." In  June,  1886,  he  paid  his  respects  to  "those 
delightful  creatures  who  lurked  behind  fences  and  hid  in 
the  bushes  two  weeks  ago,  watching  the  house"  where 
Cleveland  was  passing  his  honeymoon.  More  than  one 
New  York  journal  at  that  time  would  fabricate  interviews 
with  men  its  reporters  could  not  reach.  One  remedy  for 
the  current  abuses,  Godkin  thought,  lay  in  stringent  en- 
forcement of  the  laws  for  libel.  In  1893  an  invented 
scandal  about  a  Toronto  lady  and  gentleman  resulted  in 
the  payment  of  $14,537  damages  by  three  New  York 
papers,  and  Godkin  declared  that  it  was  a  public  service 
for  injured  persons  thus  to  bring  suit.    On  another  occa- 


RoLLO  Ogden 
Editor-in-Chief   1903-1920. 


NEWS,  LITERATURE,  MUSIC,  DRAMA  549 

sion  he  wrote:  "Some  of  the  most  highly  paid  laborers 
of  our  time  are  lying  newspaper  reporters  and  correspond- 
ents, men  who  make  no  pretense  of  telling  the  truth,  and 
would  smile  if  you  reproached  them  with  not  doing  so." 

In  the  nineties  Godkin's  distaste  for  the  Sun's  news  was 
forgotten  in  his  more  intense  reprobation  of  the  so-called 
yellow  press,  the  old  World  and  Journal.  He  thought 
that  their  sensational  attention  to  crime  and  immorality 
was  shocking,  that  they  were  much  more  careless  of  truth 
than  the  Sun,  and  that  their  pictures  and  cartoons  showed 
a  new  defect — the  defect  of  puerility.  They  did  go  for 
a  time  to  startling  lengths.  "The  note  of  the  press  to-day 
which  most  needs  changing  is  childishness,"  wrote  God- 
kin  in  May,  1896.  "The  pictures  are  childish;  the  intelli- 
gence is  mainly  for  boys  and  girls.  .  .  .  The  observations 
on  public  as  distinguished  from  purely  party  affairs  are 
quite  juvenile."  When  a  number  of  city  clubs  and  public 
libraries  excluded  the  World  and  Journal  from  their  read- 
ing rooms,  Godkin  applauded,  holding  that  the  new  sen- 
sationalism could  be  stopped  only  by  a  vigorous  public 
sentiment.  He  was  deeply  concerned,  like  many  other 
sober  men,  over  the  intellectual  effect  of  the  cheap,  widely 
read  yellow  sheets.  They  were  making  it  impossible  for 
the  masses  to  read  anything  very  long  on  any  subject,  he 
said,  and  to  read  anything,  long  or  short,  on  any  serious 
subject.  They  fed  the  people  brief  thrillers  about  shoot- 
ings and  assaults,  titbits  of  scandal,  bogus  interviews,  and 
comic  aspects  of  every  institution  from  Christianity  down; 
and  when  the  attention  grew  jaded,  they  offered  pictures 
for  tired  minds.  In  this  there  was  much  truth,  though  the 
history  of  the  World  shows  what  an  enormous  force  for 
good  lay  in  the  new  journalism. 

The  sober  news  pages  of  the  Evening  Post  were  the 
product  of  a  small  force — never  in  Godkin's  day  more 
than  a  half-dozen  full-time  reporters.  But  it  was  a  re- 
markably efficient,  well-managed  force.  During  the  nine- 
ties in  particular  it  reached  a  very  high  level  of  enterprise. 
The  managing  editor  from  1891  to  the  end  of  the  decade 
W4S  William  A.   Linn,   who   had   succeeded  James   E. 


550  THE  EVENING  POST 

Learned.  Linn  had  been  with  the  Tribune  from  1868  to 
1 87 1,  and  with  the  Post  ever  since,  and  had  remarkable 
knowledge  of  his  craft.  His  city  editor  from  1892  to 
1898  was  H.  J.  Wright,  who  was  born  in  Scotland,  gradu- 
ated at  New  York  University,  and  had  worked  on  the 
Commercial  Advertiser.  These  two  found  several  capa- 
ble men  in  the  city  room,  added  others,  and  infused  an 
unusual  esprit  de  corps  In  them.  Wright's  vigor  was  in- 
fectious; he  showed,  says  Norman  Hapgood,  "a  great 
deal  of  tolerance,  hard  work,  and  enthusiasm,  and  a  liking 
for  intelligences  of  many  kinds  around  him." 

The  three  most  remarkable  reporters  of  these  years 
were  Lincoln  Steffens,  Norman  Hapgood,  and  W.  L. 
RIardon,  two  of  whom  have  made  their  mark  In  the 
higher  reaches  of  journalism.  Riardon  was  the  political 
reporter.  He  had  been  trained  for  the  Catholic  priest- 
hood, but  weakness  for  drink  and  a  talent  for  news- 
writing  had  derailed  him.  He  was  a  member  of  Tam- 
many Hall,  and  invaluable  in  getting  material  for  assaults 
upon  It.  Yet  his  perfect  accuracy  and  fairness  shielded 
him  from  any  resentment  in  that  quarter.  "He  has  to 
earn  a  living  like  the  rest  of  us,"  Croker  would  say  when- 
ever a  particularly  biting  story  about  Tammany  appeared 
in  the  Post.  One  of  his  merits  was  that  he  never  failed 
to  bring  home  news;  if  there  was  nothing  in  the  assign- 
ment he  went  to  cover,  he  would  get  a  story  as  good' or 
better  somewhere  else.  Moreover,  he  never  wrote  him- 
self out.  On  Friday,  when  a  special  column  was  often 
needed  for  Saturday's  enlarged  paper,  Riardon  could  al- 
ways be  counted  on  to  have  something  worth  while  up  his 
sleeve. 

Steffens,  a  young  Callfornian,  who  had  studied  In  Ger- 
many and  France,  joined  the  staff  on  the  recommendation 
of  Mr.  Bishop  in  1892,  and  after  some  special  reporting 
on  rapid  transit,  was  given  a  year  In  Wall  Street  at 
the  beginning  of  the  panic.  When  first  sent  down  there, 
the  regular  Wall  Street  reporter  being  abroad,  he  asked 
for  references  to  three  or  four  leading  bankers.  "Calling 
on  them,"  he  tells  us,  "I  explained  the  predicament  of  the 


NEWS,  LITERATURE,  MUSIC,  DRAMA  551 

Post  and  my  utter  ignorance  of  finance  and  business.  But 
I  said  that,  if  they  would  coach  me  from  day  to  day,  I 
would  read  up,  study,  work,  and  I  promised  in  return  for 
the  trouble  I  might  put  them  to,  I  would  report  even  the 
most  sensational  happenings  quietly  and  carefully.  The 
agreement  was  made;  I  took  the  job,  and  though  that 
had  not  been  my  purpose,  the  effect  of  the  bankers'  in- 
terest in  me  was  that  we  had  many,  many  beats."  Later 
he  was  assigned  to  Police  Headquarters  at  the  height  of 
the  excitement  over  the  Lexow  Inquiry.  His  work  in 
following  the  new  Police  Commission,  of  which  Roosevelt 
was  chairman,  was  of  peculiar  value  to  the  public.  This 
four-headed  commission  was  always  deadlocking.  The 
obstructiveness  of  one  member  was  such  that  the  Mayor 
attempted  his  removal,  but  the  Governor  interfered  to 
prevent  it.  Steffens  for  the  Post  and  Jacob  Riis  for  the 
Sun  laid  full  reports  of  the  Board's  activities  before  the 
public,  and  brought  a  great  deal  of  public  sentiment  to 
bear  behind  Roosevelt.  Steffens  was  a  born  newspaper 
man,  sharply  observant,  vivid  in  description,  full  of 
humor,  and  with  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  town. 

Of  his  rapidity  and  capacity  Norman  Hapgood  fur- 
nishes an  interesting  illustration.  One  day  the  17-story 
Ireland  building  collapsed: 

It  fell  down  just  about  three-quarters  of  an  hour  before  we 
went  to  press.  There  was  nobody  in  the  office  except  me.  Mr. 
Wright  was  in  despair.  This  was  before  I  had  developed,  rather 
suddenly,  into  a  reporter.  As  far  as  a  story  of  this  kind  went, 
I  was  in  the  sub-cub  stage.  Nevetheless,  Mr.  Wright  had  to 
send  me.  When  I  reached  the  scene  of  the  disaster,  I  saw  Stef- 
fens talking  to  somebody  concerned — I  think  two  or  three  police- 
men. I  went  up  to  him  and  in  quite  a  leisurely  way  asked  him 
what  information  he  had.  He  had  come  to  know  me,  and  be 
rather  amused  by  my  detached  ways,  so  he  smiled  slightly,  never 
thought  of  answering  me,  and  went  on  with  his  work.  I  got  a 
few  points,  went  back  to  the  office,  and  turned  in  about  one  stick 
of  inconsequential  detail.  About  five  or  ten  minutes  before  press 
time,  Steffens  called  up  on  the  telephone.  When  he  heard  of  the 
disaster  he  had  not  taken  the  trouble  to  phone  Mr.  Wright,  but 


552  THE  EVENING  POST 

went  direct  to  the  spot.  The  paper  was  held  fifteen  or  twenty 
minutes,  and  in  less  than  half  an  hour's  dictation  by  phone  Stef- 
fens  had  covered  the  catastrophe,  given  all  its  drama,  told  every- 
thing in  an  orderly,  expert  manner,  and  not  missed  a  detail.  There 
was  not  a  morning  paper  that  had  an  account  as  good. 

Hapgood  began  on  space,  making  about  $12  a  week  at 
first;  but  he  soon  developed  into  the  best  general  reporter 
Mr.  Wright  ever  knew.  He  could  write  shorthand,  and 
was  particularly  effective  in  taking  interviews,  addresses, 
and  trial  reports  in  the  English  style.  He,  and  every  other 
reporter,  found  that  the  absolute  trustworthiness  of  the 
paper  made  men  of  affairs  willing  to  give  it  news  they 
denied  to  other  dailies.  The  treatment  of  one  "beat" 
which  he  procured  is  a  happy  illustration  of  the  Post*s 
studious  avoidance  of  anything  that  would  seem  noisy. 
He  was  well  acquainted  with  some  of  the  leaders  of  the 
Salvation  Army,  and  at  the  time  when  the  public  was  most 
interested  in  the  question  whether  Ballington  Booth  was 
going  to  break  with  his  father,  Hapgood  received  abso- 
lute knowledge  that  he  was.  Turning  in  a  story  on  the 
general  situation,  he  inserted  a  short  paragraph  in  the 
middle  giving  this  statement.  Mr.  Wright  was  tempted 
to  pick  it  out  and  put  it  at  the  head  of  the  column.  Then 
he  laughed,  said  he  would  leave  it  where  it  was,  and  called 
attention  to  it  only  by  a  minor  headline. 

During  the  Spanish  War  the  Post  had  a  creditable 
quota  of  correspondents  with  the  Cuban  forces.  A.  G. 
Robinson  sent  accounts  of  camp  life  at  Jacksonville  and 
Key  West;  Franklin  Clarkin  was  with  Sampson's  fleet 
and  later  in  the  Santiago  trenches;  and  John  Bass  was 
also  at  Santiago.  The  most  remarkable  of  the  lot,  how- 
ever, was  E.  G.  Bellairs,  as  he  called  himself,  who  got 
into  Cuba  at  Nuevitas  aboard  a  blockade-runner  from  the 
Bahamas,  and  was  soon  sending  up  remarkable  accounts 
of  his  adventures  among  the  insurgents.  He  fell  sick, 
his  servant  dug  a  grave  for  him  and  departed,  and  he  was 
rescued  by  an  old  woman  who  fed  him  miraculous  steaks 
and  meat  jellies — miraculous,  that  is,  until  he  observed 
that  his  mule  had  disappeared.     Bellairs  was  dismissed 


NEWS,  LITERATURE,  MUSIC,  DRAMA  553 

for  cause,  and  It  later  turned  out  that  his  name  was  an 
alias,  covering  a  criminal  record ;  but  he  had  high  merits 
as  a  correspondent.  The  Associated  Press  promptly  em- 
ployed him.  The  Post  showed  Its  customary  quietness 
when  Sampson  destroyed  Cervera's  fleet.  That  event  oc- 
curred Sunday,  July  3,  and  the  morning  papers  on  the 
Fourth  had  very  meager  news;  but  the  day  being  a  legal 
holiday,  the  Post  refused  to  Issue  any  edition.  Later  it 
had  full  and  prompt  correspondence  from  the  Philippines, 
a  spot  in  which  Its  editors  were  keenly  Interested. 

Much  of  the  Evening  Post's  news  value  was  always 
furnished  by  certain  unrivaled  special  features — unrivaled 
not  only  In  New  York,  but  the  whole  country.  Per- 
haps the  chief,  and  certainly  the  most  effective  in  main- 
taining the  circulation,  was  the  financial  department. 
Alexander  Dana  Noyes,  who  came  from  the  Commercial 
Advertiser  to  be  financial  editor  in  1891,  and  held  that 
post  till  1920,  gave  new  credit  to  Whiting's  pages,  and 
ably  supplemented  Horace  White  In  the  editorial  discus- 
sion of  financial  questions.  As  far  west  as  Chicago,  and 
as  far  south  as  Atlanta  his  columns  were  looked  to  daily 
as  the  best  on  industry  and  finance  printed. 

A  position  of  equal  preeminence  was  held  by  the  Eve- 
ning Post's  literary  department,  the  record  of  which  repays 
examination  in  detail.  Falling  heir  in  1881  to  the  literary 
editor  and  traditions  of  the  Nation,  the  Post  became  the 
first  American  newspaper  to  publish  book  criticism  thaJ: 
was  consistently  expert,  discriminating,  and  of  high  liter- 
ary quality.  James  Bryce  doubted  whether  there  was  any 
criticism  in  the  world  as  good  as  the  old  Nation's.  By 
188 1  some  of  the  greatest  of  Godkin's  original  contribu- 
tors, as  Henry  James  and  Lowell,  were  no  longer  writing 
for  it.  BCit  in  spite  of  such  defections,  the  list  was  im- 
pressively weighty  and  comprehensive,  and  the  Post  had 
every  worthy  book  reviewed  by  an  authority  in  the  field 
in  which  it  lay.  In  fact,  the  dominant  tone  of  its  literary 
pages  was  authorltativeness — it  was  not  clever,  it  was  not 
newsy,  but  It  was  definitive. 

In  large  part  this  meant  that  the  reviewing  was  by 


554  THE  EVENING  POST 

university  scholars,  and  the  academic  tone  of  the  writing, 
In  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  had  much  to  do  with  the 
esteem  for  the  Evening  Post  in  academic  circles.  People 
who  wanted  bright  belletrlstic  literary  pages  were  dis- 
appointed. Glancing  down  the  roster  of  reviewers  in  the 
eighties,  we  find  only  two  men  known  as  novelists  or  writ- 
ers of  light  essays,  Joel  Chandler  Harris  and  Edward 
Eggleston.  There  was  a  decided  deficiency  in  news  of 
literary  personalities,  and  discussions  of  current  Hterary 
movements.  But  all  the  great  institutions  of  learning 
were  ably  represented.  It  is  sufficient  to  take  Harvard  as 
an  example.     Her  contributors  included: 

Alexander  Agassiz,  H.  P.  Bowditch,  Edward  Channing,  Fran- 
cis J.  Child,  Ephraim  Emerton,  C.  H.  Grandgent,  J.  B.  Green- 
ough,  Albert  Bushnell  Hart,  William  James,  Charles  R.  Lanman, 
Charles  Eliot  Norton,  George  H.  Palmer,  Josiah  Royce,  N.  S. 
Shaler,  F.  W.  Taussig,  J.  D.  Whitney,  Justin  Winsor. 

Outside  the  universities,  we  find  among  the  reviewers 
the  names  of  historians  like  Parkman,  Henry  Adams, 
Henry  C.  Lea,  John  C.  Ropes,  and  John  Fiske;  a  number 
of  men  in  the  Federal  service,  like  the  archaeologist  A.  F. 
Bandelier,  the  astronomer  Simon  Newcomb,  Henry  Gan- 
nett, and  J.  R.  Soley ;  and  writers  of  reputation  in  various 
fields  like  George  E.  Woodberry,  T.  W.  HIgglnson,  W. 
C.  Brownell,  Kenyon  Cox,  Brander  Matthews,  H.  H. 
Furness,  and  Angelo  Heilprln.  The  fare  was  not  suffi- 
ciently varied  by  light  and  elegant  features — one  rule  was 
not  to  accept  any  poetry — but  it  was  of  the  best  possible 
quality. 

The  Hterary  editor  from  1881  to  1903  was  Wendell 
Phillips  Garrison,  who  had  been  with  the  Nation  since  Its 
founding  In  1865,  and  had  early  taken  charge  of  the 
reviews.  His  name  Is  indissolubly  linked  with  Godkln's. 
"If  anything  goes  wrong  with  you,  I  will  retire  into  a 
monastery,"  the  editor  wrote  in  1883.  "You  are  the  one 
steady  and  constant  man  I  have  ever  had  to  do  with." 
He  is  not  remembered,  like  R.  H.  Hutton  of  the  London 
Spectator,  the  only  literary  editor  of  the  time  superior  to 


NEWS,  LITERATURE,  MUSIC,  DRAMA  555 

him,  for  permanently  valuable  literary  criticism.  His 
distinction  lay  in  his  keen  judgment  in  selecting  reviewers, 
his  ability  to  inspire  them,  his  careful  scholarship,  and 
his  skill  in  making  homogeneous  the  work  sent  to  him. 

Both  to  his  associates  in  the  office  and  distant  contribu- 
tors, Garrison  was  endeared  by  his  tact  and  charm.  When 
writing  to  reviewers,  he  was  wont  to  include  some  per- 
sonal word  of  friendship,  often  whimsical,  which  drew 
the  recipients  into  an  intimate  circle.  He  thus  built  up  a 
great  family  of  Evening  Post  and  Nation  writers,  from 
the  Pacific  Coast  to  St.  Petersburg,  more  than  two  hun- 
dred of  whom  joined  on  the  fortieth  anniversary  of  his 
entrance  upon  journalism  in  presenting  him  a  silver  vase, 
inscribed  by  Goldwin  Smith.  Whenever  Godkin  caused  a 
storm  in  the  office.  Garrison  was  expected  to  restore  calm. 
A  single  example  of  his  constant  thoughtfulness  may  be 
given.  H.  T.  Finck,  the  Post's  music  critic,  while  travel- 
ing in  Switzerland  one  summer,  was  attacked  in  Berne  by 
typhoid  fever,  and  sent  to  the  University  Hospital.  Gar- 
rison heard  of  his  plight,  immediately  ascertained  that  the 
Nation  had  a  subscriber  in  Berne,  a  wealthy  cheese  ex- 
porter, and  wrote  this  gentleman  of  Mr.  Finck's  illness. 
The  result  was  that  the  critic  spent  his  convalescence  In 
the  subscriber's  home. 

By  his  tact  and  high  ideals.  Garrison  made  the  learned 
world  of  the  United  States  feel  that  the  book  pages  of  the 
Evening  Post  and  Nation  were  a  cooperative  enterprise, 
which  all  scholars  should  take  pride  In  keeping  at  the 
highest  possible  level.  Their  labors  were  scrupulously 
supplemented  by  his  own,  for  his  scholarship  was  rare 
and  his  exactness  almost  painful.  He  would  send  a  tele- 
gram to  settle  the  question  of  a  hyphen.  An  authority 
upon  punctuation  and  syllabication,  he  prepared  the  mate- 
rials for  an  exhaustive  treatise  upon  them,  parts  of  which 
were  printed  in  a  memorial  volume  in  1908.  Until  May, 
1888,  much  of  the  Impeccable  accuracy  of  the  literary  col- 
umns was  attributable  to  the  aid  furnished  by  Michael 
Heilprin,  a  truly  noble  scholar  who  had  been  driven  from 
Hungary  by  the  collapse  of  the  revolution  of  1848-49,  and 


556  THE  EVENING  POST 

who  just  before  the  Civil  War  had  connected  himself  with 
Appleton's  Cyclopaedia.  He  not  only  wrote  many  articles 
for  the  Post  and  Nation,  but  placed  his  marvelous  schol- 
arship at  their  service  in  the  revision  and  proof-reading 
of  articles  by  others.  He  had  a  reading-knowledge  of 
eighteen  languages.  Taking  a  dictionary  of  dates,  he 
could  run  his  eye  down  the  page  and  make  corrections  by 
the  half-dozen.  He  could  give  the  time  and  place  of  every 
battle  and  engagement  in  the  Civil  War,  and  "say  his 
popes"  without  stumbling,  a  feat  which  even  Macaulay 
declined  to  attempt.  In  history,  biography,  geography, 
and  literature  he  commanded  facts  literally  by  the  ten 
thousand. 

One  of  the  most  striking  traits  of  Evening  Post  criti- 
cism was  the  unity  of  tone  which  Garrison  gave  it.  All 
reviews  and  nearly  all  general  articles  were  anonymous. 
Godkin  and  Garrison  held  that  an  article  by  a  named 
writer  was  not  appreciated  on  its  merits;  that  if  he  was 
famous,  the  veriest  twaddle  from  his  pen  was  devoured, 
while  if  he  was  obscure,  nothing  he  wrote  was  read.  The 
reviewers  hence  felt  no  temptation  to  air  personal  idio- 
syncrasies, and  were  the  more  ready  to  assume  the  Post's 
general  point  of  view.  Mr.  Garrison  chose  his  reviewer 
with  the  greatest  care,  and  left  him  almost  perfect  free- 
dom to  say  what  he  thought,  secure  in  his  discretion.  For 
reasons  of  space  he  frequently  had  to  use  the  blue  pencil 
drastically,  but  though  he  called  himself  The  Butcher  he 
used  it  with  tact. 

When  the  Evening  Post  had  a  special  titbit  in  the  lit- 
erary columns  its  rule  of  anonymity  must  have  seemed  a 
disadvantage.  Thus  in  1883  it  published  an  article  upon 
the  death  of  Trollope,  which  even  then  would  have  made 
a  greater  impression  upon  readers  had  they  known  that 
its  author  was  James  Bryce.  Bryce  described  the  creator 
of  Mrs.  Proudie  from  personal  acquaintance — "a  genial, 
hearty,  vigorous  man,  a  typical  Englishman  in  his  face, 
his  talk,  his  ideas,  his  tastes.  His  large  eyes,  which  looked 
larger  behind  his  large  spectacles,  were  full  of  good- 
humored  life  and  force ;  and  though  he  was  not  witty  nor 


NEWS,  LITERATURE,  MUSIC,  DRAMA  557 

brilliant  in  conversation,  he  was  what  is  called  very  good 
company,  having  traveled  widely,  known  all  sorts  of 
people,  and  formed  positive  views  on  nearly  every  subject, 
which  he  was  always  ready  to  promulgate  and  maintain. 
There  was  not  much  novelty  in  them  .  .  .  but  they  were 
worth  listening  to  for  their  solid  sense,  and  you  enjoyed 
the  ardor  with  which  he  threw  himself  into  a  discussion." 
He  had,  Bryce  added,  no  successor.  Howells  and  James, 
though  true  artists,  had  not  yet  laid  hold  upon  the  general 
public;  Miss  Broughton's  fine  promise  had  not  ripened; 
and  "Mr.  George  Meredith,  a  strong  and  peculiar  genius, 
who  has  a  great  fascination  for  those  who  will  take  the 
pains  to  follow  him,  remains  unknown  to  the  vast  majority 
of  novel  readers." 

When  Gladstone  died,  Bryce's  review  of  his  career  in 
the  Post  was  signed.  But  it  was  regrettable  that,  after 
the  demise  of  Darwin,  the  editors  did  not  sign  his  name 
to  his  very  interesting  personal  sketch  of  the  great 
scientist: 

I  saw  him  at  his  home  in  Down  last  summer,  and  could  not 
remember  to  have  ever  before  seen  him  so  bright,  so  cheerful,  so 
full  of  talk.  Feeble  as  his  health  had  long  been,  he  looked  younger 
than  his  age,  and  had  a  freshness,  an  alertness  of  mind  and  eye, 
an  interest  in  all  passing  affairs,  which  one  seldom  sees  in  men 
who  are  well  past  seventy.  It  was  hard  to  believe  that  one  was 
in  the  presence  of  so  great  and  splendid  a  genius,  for  his  manner 
was  simple  and  natural  as  a  child's.  He  did  not  speak  with  any 
air  of  authority,  much  less  dogmatism,  even  on  his  own  topics; 
and  on  other  subjects,  politics  for  instance,  he  talked  as  one  who 
was  only  anxious  to  hear  what  others  had  to  say  and  resolve  his 
own  doubts.  One  remark  struck  particularly  the  two  friends  who 
had  come  to  see  him.  He  mentioned  that  Mr.  Gladstone  had, 
some  months  before,  while  spending  a  Sunday  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, walked  over  to  call  on  him ;  and  speaking  with  lively  admira- 
tion of  the  Prime  Minister's  powers,  he  added :  **It  was  delight- 
ful to  see  so  great  a  man  so  simple  and  natural.  He  talked  to 
us  as  one  of  ourselves;  you  would  never  have  known  what  he 
was."  We  looked  at  one  another,  and  thought  that  there  were 
other  great  men  of  whom  this  was  no  less  true,  and  in  whom  such 
self -forgetful  simplicity  was  no  less  beautiful. 


558  THE  EVENING  POST 

Nearly  all  the  Posfs  obituary  essays  upon  great  Amer- 
ican authors — Longfellow,  Whittier,  Holmes,  Mrs. 
Stowe,  and  others — came  from  the  chatty  and  interesting 
if  not  highly  acute  pen  of  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson. 
The  Paris  correspondent  was  Auguste  Laugel,  who  fur- 
nished a  dozen  letters  every  half-year  upon  politics  and 
literature.  Much  English  correspondence  came  from  the 
noted  jurist  and  Oxford  teacher,  A.  V.  Dicey,  who  re- 
viewed many  of  the  important  English  histories,  biog- 
raphies, and  political  works  before  they  were  published 
in  America.  Occasional  long  reviews  were  furnished  by 
other  Englishmen,  as  Leslie  Stephen  and  Alfred  Russell 
Wallace. 

The  best  appraisals  of  current  fiction  were  those  con- 
tributed in  the  eighties  by  W.  C.  Brownell,  whose  esti- 
mates of  important  books  like  Henry  James'  "Portrait  of 
a  Lady"  were  almost  perfect  in  their  sanity,  penetration, 
and  literary  grace.  Unfortunately,  he  wrote  rarely,  and 
most  reviews  came  from  less  distinguished  hands.  The 
Evening  Post  was  always  fervent  in  its  admiration  of 
Henry  James's  earlier  manner,  and  it  never  took  a  patron- 
izing tone  toward  Mark  Twain,  but  it  was  long  a  bit  sus- 
picious of  Howells,  admitting  his  power  but  regarding  his 
work  as  ugly.  Brownell  enthusiastically  described  "The 
Portrait  of  a  Lady"  as  superior  in  moral  quality  to 
George  Eliot,  but  the  reviewers  of  Howells  disliked  his 
realism.  The  verdict  upon  "Silas  Lapham"  was  that, 
except  in  its  fine  literary  form,  the  novel  had  no  beauty. 
"There  is  no  inspiration  for  any  one  in  the  character  of 
Silas  Lapham.  It  rouses  no  tender  or  elevating  emotion, 
stirs  no  thrill  of  sympathy,  suggests  no  ideal  of  conduct, 
no  notion  that  the  world  at  large  is  or  can  be  less  ugly 
than  Lapham  himself.  If  it  is  to  be  conceded  that  Mr. 
Howells  and  his  school  are  great  artists  in  the  highest 
reaches  of  their  art,  then  the  language  is  in  sore  need  of 
words  to  define  Sir  Walter  Scott  and  Thackeray."  How- 
ever, the  writer  admitted  that  the  portrait  of  Lapham  had 
a  vividness  and  completeness  unapproached  in  contem- 
porary English  fiction. 


NEWS,  LITERATURE,  MUSIC,  DRAMA  559 

The  essays  and  reviews  of  widest  Interest  were  prob- 
ably those  upon  distinctly  literary  topics,  and  here  the 
pens  of  George  L.  KIttredge,  Thomas  R.  Lounsbury, 
Basil  L.  GUdersleeve,  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  and  George 
E.  Woodberry  were  especially  In  evidence.  They  wrote 
with  charm  upon  a  wide  variety  of  books,  and  frequently 
with  a  special  knowledge  and  Interpretative  Insight  that 
made  their  essays  almost  permanently  significant.  The 
most  active  reviewer  of  history  and  political  biography 
was  Gen.  Jacob  D.  Cox,  the  works  he  treated  ranging 
from  the  massive  histories  by  Rhodes  and  Von  Hoist  to 
lives  of  minor  Civil  War  leaders.  Cox  himself  wrote 
several  books  on  the  rebellion,  and  after  the  death  of 
John  C.  Ropes — also  a  contributor — was  easily  the  high- 
est American  authority  upon  Its  battles  and  strategy.  Two 
other  historians  who  assisted  were  Lea  and  Goldwin 
Smith.    Wm.  Graham  Sumner  wrote  much  on  economics. 

It  Is  evident  that  the  Evening  Post's  literary  strength 
counted  as  a  marked  addition  to  its  new  value.  Some 
books  are  not  news,  but  most  are;  and  if  in  no  other 
American  journal  was  there  so  little  news  of  sensation,  in 
none  was  there  so  much  news  of  Ideas.  An  outstanding 
review  like  that  which  J.  D.  Cox  wrote  of  Bryce's  "Amer- 
ican Commonwealth"  or  Gamaliel  Bradford  of  Woodrow 
Wilson's  "Congressional  Government"  was  news  in  the 
best  sense.  From  all  the  important  foreign  capitals,  not 
merely  London  and  Paris,  came  constant  news  of  the  new 
publications,  new  Intellectual  movements,  and  new  events 
In  letters,  art,  and  science.  Until  her  death  that  remark- 
able Englishwoman,  Jessie  White  Mario,  wrote  from 
Italy.  The  first  American  news  of  the  production  of 
Ibsen's  "Ghosts"  and  the  stir  it  caused  was  furnished  in 
a  long  letter  from  Berlin  In  January,  1887,  by  C.  H. 
Genung.  Perhaps  the  outstanding  illustration  of  this 
alertness  of  the  Evening  Post  to  intellectual  news  is  its 
clear  reflection  throughout  the  eighties  of  the  discovery 
of  Russian  literature  by  the  Western  world.  It  and  the 
Nation  did  far  more  than  all  other  periodicals  combined 
to  introduce  Turgenev,  Tolstoy,  Gogol,  and  Dostoievsky 


S6o  THE  EVENING  POST 

to  the  American  public.  As  it  remarked  in  1886,  when  it 
published  articles  upon  "Anna  Karenina,"  "Childhood 
and  Youth,"  "Crime  and  Punishment,"  and  "The  Insulted 
and  Injured,"  the  appearance  of  this  new  literature  re- 
called the  wonder  of  English  readers  when,  in  the  time  of 
Scott  and  Coleridge,  German  literature  was  first  opened 
to  them.  Isabel  Hapgood  was  long  the  St.  Petersburg 
correspondent,  while  Auguste  Laugel  was  in  personal 
communication  with  not  only  De  Vogue  and  other  stu- 
dents of  Russian  letters,  but  with  Turgenev. 

The  campaign  which  Bryant  had  carried  on  for  an  in- 
ternational copyright  law  was  tirelessly  maintained  by 
Godkin  and  Garrison.  After  a  time  it  appeared  that 
cheap  piracy  was  about  to  accomplish  what  argument  had 
never  done ;  that  the  disreputable  pirates  were  ruining  the 
business  of  respectable  piracy,  as  carried  on  by  Harper's 
and  others.  The  latter  paid  a  popular  English  author  for 
the  right  to  issue  an  authorized  version,  but  within  a  week 
some  printer  who  had  paid  nothing  might  be  out  with  a 
cheaper  edition  which  displaced  the  other.  More  and 
more  publishers,  therefore,  joined  in  the  crusade.  Late 
in  Arthur's  Administration  the  judiciary  committee  of  the 
House  reported  that  the  justice  of  an  international  copy- 
right law  was  unquestionable,  and  Arthur,  in  his  last  an- 
nual message,  urged  the  subject  upon  the  attention  of  Con- 
gress. But  as  Godkin  wrote,  some  clergyman  was  always 
ready  to  start  up  and  announce  that  books  were  a  prop- 
erty that  God  had  meant  to  be  stolen,  and  that  It  was  only 
an  oversight  that  they  had  not  been  excepted  by  name 
from  the  Ten  Commandments;  while  some  Western  paper 
was  always  ready  to  prove  that  a  copyright  bill  held  a 
hidden  villainy  in  behalf  of  the  pampered  noblemen  who 
wrote  and  published  books  in  England. 

Godkin,  growing  deeply  Interested  as  the  eighties 
passed,  wrote  with  a  vehemence  which  George  Haven 
Putnam  describes  as  invaluable  in  Impressing  most 
thoughtful  citizens  and  legislators,  but  which  actually 
antagonized  some  others,  and  which  ultimately  led  to  a 
cause  celehre.    Prominent  among  the  opponents  of  Inter- 


NEWS,  LITERATURE,  MUSIC,  DRAMA  561 

national  copyright  was  the  Rev.  Dr.  Isaac  K.  Funk,  a 
leader  of  the  Methodists  and  Prohibitionists,  who  gradu- 
ally built  up  the  great  publishing  business  of  Funk  &  Wag- 
nails.  Dr.  Funk  mistakenly  came  to  believe  that  a  ma- 
jority of  Godkln's  blows  were  aimed  at  his  head,  and  he 
resented  the  fact  that  among  all  the  exponents  of  piracy 
he  should  be  singled  out  as  a  shining  mark.  In  due  time 
the  editor,  commenting  on  Funk's  alleged  piracy  of  an 
Important  English  work,  rather  overstepped  the  mark 
and  laid  himself  open  to  legal  counterattack.  Dr.  Funk 
promptly  brought  suit  for  defamation  and  injury  in  the 
amount  of  $250,000.  There  was  some  consternation  at 
the  Evening  Post  office,  where  Godkln's  attack  was 
deemed  legally  Indefensible,  and  Joseph  H.  Choate,  who 
was  retained  to  defend  the  editor,  shared  It.  Indeed,  he 
told  Mr.  Godkin  that  he  could  hardly  expect  to  bring  him 
off  scot-free,  but  would  try  to  hold  the  penalty  to  a  nom- 
inal sum. 

But  by  characteristic  adroitness  and  audacity,  es- 
pecially In  cross-examining  Dr.  Funk,  Choate  made  his 
conduct  of  the  case  a  notable  triumph.  Mr.  Godkln's 
attacks  had  extended  over  a  number  of  years.  Never- 
theless, Choate  showed  that  during  all  this  time  Dr.  Funk 
had  repeatedly  been  asked  to  officiate  in  Methodist  pul- 
pits, that  he  had  been  honored  by  his  denomination  in 
other  ways,  that  the  Prohibitionists  had  nominated  him 
for  Congress  and  the  Governorship,  and  that  It  was  not 
Improbable  that  he  would  some  day  receive  their  nom- 
ination for  the  Presidency.  All  these  honors  had  come 
at  the  time  when  the  attacks  by  the  Post  had  been  most 
intense. 

"Now,"  said  Choate  to  Dr.  Funk,  "now,  sir,  will  you 
please  make  clear  to  his  honor,  and  to  the  gentlemen  of 
the  jury,  just  in  what  manner  your  character  and  your 
relations  with  your  friends  and  your  associates  and  the 
public  at  large  have  suffered  Injury  from  the  so-called 
brutal  attacks  of  my  client?"  To  this  challenge  Dr. 
Funk  did  not  know  how  to  reply.  In  his  final  address  to 
the  jury  Choate  carried  the  war  into  the  enemy's  territory 


562  THE  EVENING  POST 

with  staggering  effect.  It  happened  that  Dean  Farrar's 
life  of  Christ  had  been  first  brought  out  here  in  an  author- 
ized edition  by  E.  P.  Button  &  Co.,  and  had  immedi- 
ately been  pirated  by  Dr.  Funk,  although  Dutton's  had 
paid  the  author  a  substantial  sum.  "I  have  never  been 
a  doctor  of  divinity,"  remarked  Choate;  "I  never  expect 
to  be  one.  I  cannot  tell,  therefore,  just  how  a  doctor  of 
divinity  feels;  but  to  me,  an  outsider  and  a  layman,  there 
is  something  incongruous  in  the  idea  of  a  doctor  of 
divinity  going  into  business  for  gain  and  beginning  his 
operations  by  stealing  the  Life  of  his  Saviour."  Partly 
because  of  the  lack  of  evidence  of  any  real  injury  to  Dr. 
Funk,  partly  because  of  Choate's  shrewd  thrust,  the  jury's 
verdict  was  in  favor  of  Godkin,  and  the  costs  were 
assessed  upon  Dr.  Funk. 

The  ultimate  partial  victory  for  international  copy- 
right in  March,  1891,  just  as  Congress  was  ending  its 
session,  left  the  Evening  Post  dissatisfied.  It  admitted 
that  the  law  was  a  triumph  for  honesty,  and  that  it  put 
an  end  to  the  Algerine  system  of  fostering  the  national 
intelhgence.  *'But  if  we  said  that  it  was  a  measure  to 
be  proud  of,  we  should  be  going  far  beyond  the  truth. 
The  obligation  under  which  it  places  the  foreign  author 
of  having  his  book  'manufactured'  in  this  country,  as  a 
condition  of  protection  for  it,  is  a  piece  of  tariff  bar- 
barism which  is  enough  to  make  one  hang  one's  head." 
Unfortunately,  the  manufacturing  clause,  after  thirty 
years,  is  still  retained  in  our  copyright  legislation. 

Mr.  Towse's  promotion  from  a  reportership  to  the 
dramatic  editorship  was  no  accident,  for  by  training  and 
taste  he  was  admirably  fitted  for  the  position.  He  had 
been  taken  regularly  to  the  theater  from  his  eighth  birth- 
day, had  seen  Charles  Kean  play,  and  recalls  a  perform- 
ance at  the  old  Adelphi  in  London  in  April,  1853.  ^s  a 
boy  he  was  a  constant  and  sometimes  surreptitious  at- 
tendant in  the  pit  of  the  Old  Drury,  Haymarket,  and 
other  theaters.  The  Haymarket  at  the  time  was  the 
recognized  home  of  polite  comedy  in  London,  and  there 
Mr.  Towse  saw  admirable  performances  of  Shakespeare, 


NEWS,  LITERATURE,  MUSIC,  DRAMA  563 

Sheridan,  and  Goldsmith,  as  well  as  E.  A.  Sothern  as 
Lord  Dundreary  before  the  part  had  been  made  the 
piece  of  broad  buffoonery  which  it  later  became  in  Amer- 
ica. The  Adelphi  was  the  home  of  melodrama,  well 
played.  But  the  performances  which  made  the  chief  im- 
pression upon  the  boy  were  those  of  the  famous  actor- 
manager  Samuel  Phelps,  who  in  the  fifties  and  early  six- 
ties raised  Sadler's  Wells  Theater,  in  the  shabby  and 
despised  suburb  of  Islington,  into  a  famous  shrine  of 
dramatic  art,  and  who  later  appeared  in  other  London 
theaters.  Phelps  is  pronounced  by  Mr.  Towse  to  have 
been  beyond  doubt  the  most  versatile  actor  of  the  nine- 
teenth century. 

The  outstanding  merits  of  the  London  stage  of  this 
period  lay  in  the  fact  that  it  rested  upon  the  old  stock 
companies,  in  which  the  standards  of  acting  were  far 
more  uniformly  high  than  those  which  obtained  after  the 
introduction  of  the  star  system.  The  actors  and  actresses 
had  been  reared  in  a  school  of  hard  work,  small  pay,  and 
rigid  insistence  upon  the  difference  between  a  mere  per- 
formance and  a  characterization.  All  had  served  a  long 
apprenticeship,  and  gained  such  a  comprehensive  knowl- 
edge of  their  craft  that  they  knew  how  to  acquit  them- 
selves creditably  in  comedy,  tragedy,  or  melodrama.  Mr. 
Towse  recalls  their  striking  diversity  and  authority  of 
gesture,  their  distinction  of  speech,  their  easy  adaptation 
of  manner  to  the  character,  and  remarkable  power  of 
emotional  expression.  Versatility  was  unescapable.  At 
Sadler's  Wells,  for  instance,  all  Shakespeare's  plays  ex- 
cept two  were  produced  during  Phelps's  seventeen  years 
of  management,  along  with  the  other  Elizabethan 
dramatists,  and  many  plays  by  later  or  contemporary 
authors — Colman,  Sheridan,  Goldsmith,  Knowles,  Bul- 
wer,  and  so  on;  there  being  a  change  of  bill  at  least  twice 
or  thrice  a  week. 

When  Mr.  Towse  began  to  review  plays  for  the  Eve- 
ning Post  in  the  early  seventies,  he  found  in  New  York 
still  several  very  flourishing  stock  companies,  though  the 
theater  was  rapidly  entering  upon  a  transition  to  the  star- 


564  THE  EVENING  POST 

and-circult  system.  Their  proficiency  was  like  that  of  the 
British  companies,  although,  being  fewer,  they  did  not 
supply  so  many  all-round  actors.  A  number  of  the  best 
of  the  players  had  disappeared  or  were  disappearing. 
James  K.  Hackett,  Junius  Brutus  Booth,  and  J.  W.  Wal- 
lack  were  gone,  Edwin  Forrest  and  Charlotte  Cushman 
were  meditating  their  farewells,  and  Edwin  Booth  was 
in  a  period  of  temporary  eclipse.  The  speculative  man- 
ager, almost  wholly  ignorant  of  anything  about  the 
theater  but  its  money-making  possibilities,  was  beginning 
to  arise  and  foreshadow  the  day  when  he  would  make  the 
typical  New  York  production  one  in  which  one  or  two 
fairly  able  players  would  be  supported  by  a  parcel  of 
supernumeraries. 

But  the  performances  at  Wallack's  in  the  seventies  and 
eighties  were  found  by  Mr.  Towse  to  compare  favorably 
with  those  given  by  the  Haymarket  company  in  London. 
He  saw  John  Gilbert  in  a  number  of  striking  character- 
izations, notably  Sir  Harcourt  Courtly,  Sir  Peter  Teazle, 
and  Sir  Anthony  Absolute,  while  Lester  Wallack  played 
admirably  in  other  parts;  and  two  other  performers  of 
note  were  Charles  and  Rose  Coghlan.  Augustin  Daly's 
company  gave  many  brilliant,  if  uneven,  performances  in 
the  late  seventies  and  early  eighties,  and  included  a  num- 
ber of  players  of  trained  skill:  Charles  Fisher,  Fanny 
Davenport,  John  Drew,  Mrs.  G.  H.  Gilbert,  Ada  Rehan, 
and  others.  When  "Romeo  and  Juliet"  was  presented 
in  1877,  with  Adelaide  Neilson  as  Juliet,  Mr.  Towse  gave 
her  at  once  a  place  among  the  very  great  Juliets.  The 
Union  Square  Company  was  almost  wholly  limited  to 
melodrama,  but  within  that  field  it  was  the  best  in  the 
country,  and  probably  in  the  world.  With  it  Clara 
Morris  achieved  some  remarkable  successes.  In  later 
years  Mr.  Towse  recalls  her  as  playing  with  Tommaso 
Salvini,  whom  he  thinks  ''not  only  incomparably  the 
greatest  actor  and  artist  I  have  ever  seen,  but  one  who 
has  never  had  an  equal,  probably,  since  the  days  of 
Garrick." 

It  is  by  the  standards  thus  acquired  in  studying  the  old 


NEWS,  LITERATURE,  MUSIC,  DRAMA   ^6s 

British  and  American  stock  companies  that  Mr.  Towse 
has  measured  the  present-day  stage — standards  of  the 
utmost  severity,  which  he  believes  show  a  steady  and 
lamentable  fall  in  the  general  level  of  acting.  He  has 
always  been  ready  to  admit  the  high  merit  of  a  good 
many,  and  the  genius  of  a  few,  stars;  but  from  the  time 
of  Edwin  Booth,  who  encouraged  the  star  system  by  his 
failure  to  insist  upon  good  supporting  casts,  until  to-day, 
he  has  condemned  the  indifference  shown  to  the  sub- 
ordinate roles.  The  lack  of  taste  and  artistic  conscience 
among  most  of  the  managers  of  our  time  he  equally  de- 
plores. His  standards  of  criticism  are  severe  from  not 
only  the  histrionic  and  literary  standpoints,  but  from  the 
moral  standpoint.  Convinced  that  the  theater  is  one  of 
the  most  important  educational  Influences,  good  or  bad, 
within  the  resources  of  modern  civilization,  he  Insists  upon 
drawing  a  clear  line  between  Inspiring  and  ennobling 
plays,  and  vicious  plays.  No  other  critic  In  England  or 
America  has  a  background  of  experience  approaching  Mr. 
Towse's,  and  none  writes  with  more  responsibility  and 
weight. 

Mr.  FInck,  on  the  other  hand,  has  had  the  advantage 
of  finding  New  York's  music  improving  from  decade  to 
decade,  until  the  city  is  one  of  the  world's  greatest  music 
centers.  When  he  joined  the  Evening  Post,  operatic 
singers  and  audiences  were  divided  into  two  hostile  camps, 
the  Italian  and  German — both  accepting  the  French  as 
allies.  Companies  which  gave  German  opera  sneered  at 
the  Italian;  companies  which,  like  Mapleson's  at  the 
Academy  of  Music,  gave  Italian  opera.  Ignored  all  Ger- 
mans save  those  who,  like  Gluck  and  Mozart,  wrote  more 
or  less  In  the  Italian  mariner.  The  revolution  which 
erased  this  narrow  hostility  was  effected,  in  the  main,  by 
the  growth  of  Wagner's  popularity  among  operatic  per- 
formers until  It  became  irresistible. 

From  the  beginning  Mr.  Finck  was  a  champion  of  the 
German  opera  which  Mapleson  systematically  slighted. 
During  the  summer  of  1882  he  sent  the  Post  from  Bay- 
reuth  a  series  of  highly  interesting  letters  upon  the  Wag- 


S66  THE  EVENING  POST 

ner  performances  there.  He  described  old  Wagner, 
almost  seventy,  as  busy  half  the  day  overseeing  the  pro- 
ductions; pleased  as  a  child  whenever  the  effects  were 
especially  fine,  and  once  even  shouting  to  Frau  Cosima 
across  the  whole  auditorium,  "You  see,  my  dear  little 
wife,  that  we  can  get  up  something  together,  after  all." 
Mr.  Finck  poked  fun  unmercifully  at  the  more  florid 
Italian  operas,  and  assisted  greatly  in  driving  pieces  like 
Bellini's  "La  Sonnambula"  from  the  stage.  In  October, 
1883,  he  was  able  to  hail  the  opening  of  the  new  Metro- 
politan, with  a  company  that,  including  Campanini  and 
Mme.  Nilsson,  was  willing  to  do  full  justice  to  the  Ger- 
mans; and  when  in  the  spring  of  1887  he  reviewed  the 
third  season  of  German  opera,  he  could  rejoice  that  of 
sixty-two  performances  Wagper  had  received  thirty-two. 
Conservative  and  dignified  though  it  was,  in  every  di- 
rection the  Evening  Post  had  a  marked  growth  during 
the  eighties  and  nineties.  It  found  its  first  sporting  editor 
in  Charles  Pike  Sawyer,  who  joined  the  staff  in  the  spring 
of  1886.  It  soon  had  a  real  estate  editor.  Its  steady 
expansion  led  to  the  abandonment,  on  Oct.  31,  1887,  of 
the  folio  shape  in  which  it  had  always  appeared  since 
1 80 1.  The  blanket  sheet  was  unmanageable;  it  could 
not  be  stereotyped,  so  that  the  printing  had  to  be  done 
direct  from  the  locked  type ;  and  it  gave  too  little  space. 
As  Godkin  said,  the  change  was  a  contribution  to  the  anti- 
profanity  movement.  The  sturdiness  of  the  Post  is 
evinced  by  the  fact  that  in  occasional  years  its  profits 
were  large,  and  that  for  the  whole  period  the  balance 
was  decidedly  upon  the  right  side  of  the  ledger;  from 
1881  to  191 5,  the  net  profits  on  the  capital  invested  were 
about  two  per  cent,  a  year.  This  was  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  Henry  Villard  did  not  expect  it  to  be  a  money- 
making  business,  the  fact  that  its  business  managers  were 
not  aggressive,  and  the  fact  that  Mr.  Godkin's  editorial 
fearlessness  and  bluntness  inevitably  made  enemies.  Near 
the  end  of  his  editorship,  Godkin's  attacks  upon  the  small- 
ness  of  the  hundred-dollar  tariff  exemption  for  travelers 
returning  from  abroad  involved  him  in  a  dispute  with 


NEWS,  LITERATURE,  MUSIC,  DRAMA  567 

mercantile  Interests  In  New  York.  He  made  some  un- 
tactful  remarks  concerning  small  tradesmen,  and  the  re- 
sult was  a  boycott  of  the  paper.  Involving  most  of  the 
department  stores,  which  cost  it  large  sums.  Henry  Vil- 
lard  accepted  this  blow  in  an  admirable  spirit,  and  It  was 
determined  that  it  would  not  be  allowed  to  hamper  the 
management  in  any  of  its  activities. 

Mr.  Godkin  once  said  he  had  never  known  any  other 
man  capable  of  the  generosity  Mr.  Villard  showed  with 
the  Evening  Post.  The  owner  never  sought  to  Influence 
the  paper;  he  rarely  entered  the  office  unless  Invited;  and 
he  submitted  without  a  word  to  attacks  by  the  financial 
editor  upon  his  railway  policies.  Throughout  his  life  and 
for  years  after  his  death  Mrs.  Villard,  who  became  the 
owner,  upheld  the  editors  even  when  Mr.  Godkin  assailed 
causes  near  her  heart,  like  woman  suffrage,  and  made 
large  financial  sacrifices  to  sustain  the  paper. 

Taking  Its  editorial  page,  Its  criticism,  and  its  news 
together,  the  Evening  Post  of  the  period  under  review 
was  quite  Indispensable  to  New  Yorkers  of  culture.  One 
was  as  certain  to  see  It  in  any  home  of  intelligence  and 
means  as  he  was  certain  to  find  a  set  of  Shakespeare.  It 
Is  interesting  to  note  how  our  writers  have  singled  it  out 
as  an  essential  piece  of  furniture  In  any  household  of  re- 
finement. Edith  Wharton  shows  us  old  Mr.  van  der 
Luyden  immersed  at  his  Skuyterscliff  mansion  In  the  Eve- 
ning Post;  Joseph  Hergesheimer  lays  It  beside  the  study 
of  Beethoven  and  the  Tanagra  figurine  on  Howat  Penny's 
study  table.  The  news  was  not  superabundant,  but  it  was 
well  proportioned  and  thoroughly  reliable.  The  financial 
columns  were  without  an  equal.  The  criticism  of  books, 
drama,  music,  and  art  was  the  best  in  the  country.  The 
editorial  views  might  seem  congenial  or  repugnant,  but 
one  simply  had  to  know  what  Mr.  Godkin  was  saying. 


CHAPTER  TWENTY-SIX 

HORACE  WHITE,  ROLLO  OGDEN,  AND  THE  "EVENING 
post"  SINCE  1900 

The  editorship  of  Horace  White  was  a  three  years'  in- 
terlude (Jan.  I,  1900-Jan.  31,  1903)  between  the  eighteen 
years  of  Godkin,  and  the  equally  long  editorship  of  Rollo 
Ogden.  Its  outstanding  feature  was  the  campaign  of 
1900,  during  which  the  Evening  Post  faced  the  two  major 
parties  In  a  plague-on-both-your-houses  spirit.  It  was 
impossible  for  It  to  support  either  McKInley  or  Bryan. 
But  It  did  applaud  Bryan's  anti-imperialist  speeches,  and 
from  them  and  the  Democratic  platform  plank  on  the 
Philippines  It  expected  the  greatest  good.  "They  will 
put  one-half  the  people  of  the  United  States  in  a  high 
school  to  learn  the  principles  of  free  government,"  wrote 
Horace  White,  "as  a  class  learns  a  lesson  by  repetition 
and  observation."  In  other  words,  believing  that  the 
Democratic  Party  had  possessed  no  definite  Ideas  regard- 
ing the  Philippines  previous  to  the  Kansas  City  Conven- 
tion, the  Post  hoped  that  the  campaign  would  Imbue  it 
with  a  lasting  set  of  principles  on  the  subject.  That  hope 
has  been  justified.  After  Bryan  defined  imperialism  as 
the  paramount  issue,  the  paper — which  knew  his  op- 
ponent would  win — more  and  more  Implied  that  a  vote 
for  him  would  be  a  healthy  vote  of  protest. 

The  decisiveness  of  McKInley's  victory  showed  that 
the  people  were  quite  unconvinced  of  the  views  of  Bryan 
and  the  Evening  Post  regarding  our  Philippine  policy. 
It  happened  that  Carl  Schurz  had  made  a  tour  of  the 
West  shortly  before  the  election,  speaking  against  im- 
perialism, and  on  his  return  had  visited  the  Evening  Post 
confident  that  Bryan  would  carry  a  long  list  of  States 
there.  The  day  after  election  Joseph  BuckPn  Bishop 
argued  In  the  editorial  conference  that  the  Post  should 

568 


THE  "EVENING  POST"  SINCE  1900     569 

treat  the  result  frankly,  and  abstain  from  any  pretense 
that  the  anti-imperialist  cause  had  not  been  hard  hit.  The 
editorial  which  he  wrote  harmonized  with  this  view. 
About  noon  Schurz  came  in,  eager  to  learn  what  the  edi- 
tors thought  of  the  election,  and  was  shocked  when  he 
read  Bishop's  editorial.  Towering  over  the  younger 
man,  and  shaking  his  finger  in  Bishop's  face,  he  declared 
in  his  severest  tones:  "You  admit  too  much — you  admit 
too  much  I"  "Too  much  what?"  demanded  the  irritated 
Bishop.    "Too  much  truth?" 

But  the  Evening  Post  of  course  no  more  surrendered 
its  position  upon  the  Philippine  question  than  upon  the 
tariff.  It  took  the  view  that  the  islands  should  be  freed 
as  soon  as  a  stable  government  could  be  erected,  and  it 
believed  then,  as  it  believes  still,  that  the  Republican  idea 
of  a  stable  government  is  altogether  too  exacting.  That 
American  troops  should  be  sent  to  the  other  side  of  the 
world  to  impose  American  rule  upon  an  unwilling  people 
seemed  to  it  horrible.  Horace  White  warmly  approved 
of  President  McKinley's  and  John  Hay's  liberal  attitude 
toward  China  in  the  Boxer  troubles,  and  their  insistence 
upon  the  open  door  and  Chinese  integrity.  The  same 
liberal  principles  seemed  to  him  to  condemn  the  employ- 
ment of  a  hundred -thousand  men  and  a  hundred  million 
dollars  a  year  to  subjugate  the  Filipinos;  give  them  a 
definite  promise  of  independence,  he  held,  and  the  fighting 
might  stop. 

When  Mr.  White  resigned,  in  accordance  with  his 
original  intention  of  remaining  editor  but  a  short  period, 
it  was  a  foregone  conclusion  that  his  successor  would  be 
Mr.  Ogden.  A  power  in  the  Evening  Post  office  since  he 
entered  it  in  1891,  Mr.  Ogden  had  come  to  take  a  leading 
share  in  the  guidance  of  policy  and  the  writing  of  the 
important  editorials.  Of  his  long,  exceedingly  able,  and 
fruitful  editorship,  one  comparable  only  with  Godkin's 
and  Bryant's  in  the  history  of  the  paper,  it  is  too  soon  to 
write  in  detail.  But  its  main  outlines  may  be  roughly 
indicated.  I; 

In  national  politics  the  Evening  Post  continued  inde- 


570  THE  EVENING  POST 

pendent,  with  the  leaning  towards  the  Democratic  Party 
which  its  low-tariff  and  anti-imperialist  tenets  naturally 
gave  it.  The  only  occasions  since  1884  when  it  has  not 
supported  the  Democratic  ticket  are  the  three  occasions 
on  which  Bryan  ran.  In  1904  it  was  with  Parker  against 
Roosevelt,  and  in  19 12  and  19 16  it  was  with  Wilson. 
In  international  affairs  it  remained  the  champion  of  peace 
and  of  fair  play  for  the  weaker  nations,  with  that  special 
regard  for  friendship  with  England  which  has  animated 
it  since  1801.  It  was  always  to  be  found  arrayed  against 
Jthe  Piatt  and  Barnes  machines  in  State  politics,  and 
against  Tammany  in  the  city.  Upon  some  large  domestic 
questions  its  policy  changed — it  early  became  an  advocate 
of  woman's  suffrage,  and  in  due  time  a  supporter  of  na- 
tional prohibition;  while  upon  other  domestic  questions, 
as  the  negro  question,  it  grew  much  more  aggressive  and 
insistent. 

Much  of  the  energy  with  which  the  Evening  Post  op- 
posed Roosevelt  in  1904  was  due  to  its  hot  indignation 
over  the  steps  by  which,  the  previous  fall,  he  had  gained 
a  right  of  way  for  the  Panama  Canal  by  hastening  to 
confirm  the  separation  of  Panama  from  Colombia.  Mr. 
Ogden's  attacks  upon  that  high-handed  act  were  stinging. 
Whether  or  not  American  agents  had  intrigued  to  bring 
about  Panama's  secession,  the  Evening  Post  thought  it 
shameful,  in  view  of  our  protests  in  the  Civil  War  against 
European  recognition  of  the  Confederacy,  to  be  so  pre- 
cipitate in  recognizing  Panama.  "Our  policy  is  now  the 
humiliating  one  of  treating  a  pitifully  feeble  nation  as  we 
should  never  dream  of  dealing  with  even  a  second-class 
Power,"  wrote  Mr.  Ogden;  ''of  giving  a  friendly  republic 
a  blow  in  the  face  without  waiting  for  either  explanation 
or  protest;  of  going  far  beyond  the  diplomatic  require- 
ments of  the  situation,  and  that  with  indecent  haste — and 
all  for  what?  To  aid  a  struggling  people?  .  .  .  No, 
but  just  for  a  handful  of  silver,  just  for  a  commercial 
advantage.  .  .  ."  On  one  occasion  he  published  as  an 
editorial,  without  comment,  the  Bible  passage  relating 
to  Naboth's  vineyard. 


THE  '^EVENING  POST"  SINCE  1900     571 

Toward  the  seven  years  of  Roosevelt's  Presidency  the 
attitude  of  the  Evening  Post  had  to  be  a  constant  alterna- 
tion of  hostility  and  friendliness.  It  disliked  his  love  of 
excitement  and  sensation,  but  liked  his  energy.  It  at- 
tacked his  demands  for  a  big  army  and  navy,  but  admired 
his  brilliant  conclusion  of  peace  between  Russia  and 
Japan.  It  believed  him  Indifferent  to  constitutional  and 
legal  methods,  censuring  his  tendency  to  ride  rough-shod 
over  Congress  and  curse  the  courts;  but  It  valued  his 
ability  to  get  things  done,  and  recognized  the  Immense 
constructive  achievement  of  his  administration — his  work 
for  conservation  and  Irrigation,  his  railway  rate  legisla- 
tion, his  pursuit  of  land  thieves,  postal  thieves,  and  rebate- 
granting  railways,  his  successful  fight  In  the  Northern 
Securities  case.  Above  all,  it  recognized  in  him  an 
awakener  of  the  national  conscience : 

A  great  upheaval  of  moral  sentiment  took  place  during  his 
administration.  He  was  not  the  sole  cause  of  it,  but  he  utilized 
it  and  furthered  it  mightily.  An  account  of  stewardship  of  the 
rich  \vas  vigorously  demanded.  Business  dishonesty  was  held  up 
to  abhorrence.  Corporation  rottenness  was  probed.  All  this,  in 
spite  of  excesses  of  denunciation  and  legislation,  was  highly  salu- 
tary. It  was  full  time  that  people  who  had  been  mismanaging 
corporations  and  exploiting  the  public  were  called  sharply  to  book. 
.  .  .  The  quickening  of  the  national  conscience,  the  rousing  of 
a  people  long  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins,  with  such  concrete  results 
as  the  reform  of  the  insurance  companies  and  the  restrictions  upon 
predatory  public  service  corporations,  is  a  service  the  value  of 
which  can  scarcely  be  overlooked.     (March,  1909.) 

Having  been  outraged  by  the  McKInley  tariff  and  done 
its  best  to  further  the  political  revolt  which  that  measure 
produced,  having  been  equally  denunciatory  of  the  Ding- 
ley  tariff,  the  Evening  Post  hoped  In  1909  for  a  genuine 
revision  downward.  Throughout  the  campaign  of  1908 
It  had  regretted  the  lukewarmness  of  Taft's  utterances  on 
this  subject.  The  day  after  his  election  Mr.  Ogden  gave 
him  a  grave  warning,  which  now  appears  as  a  prophecy 
justified: 


572  THE  EVENING  POST 

To  Mr.  Taft  we  look  for  the  fulfillment  of  those  solemn 
promises — particularly  for  reform  of  the  tariff — to  which  he  and 
his  party  are  committed.  Notwithstanding  the  returns  from  the 
polls,  there  is  widespread  dissatisfaction  with  the  recklessness  and 
extravagance  which  have  been  encouraged  by  twelve  years  of 
unbroken  Republican  ascendency.  .  .  .  More  menacing  yet  has 
been  the  open  alliance  between  the  protected  manufacturers  and 
the  Republican  politicians  for  the  exploitation  of  the  farmers  and 
the  vast  mass  of  consumers.  It  is  not  conceivable  that  this  sinister 
partnership  can  continue  as  in  the  past.  The  new  and  radical 
element  which  is  gaining  control  of  the  Republican  organization 
in  the  west  will  fight  the  stolid  stand-patters  like  Aldrich  and 
Cannon,  and  it  may  be  set  down  as  a  certainty  that  if  Mr.  Taft 
does  not  join  with  them  in  the  task  of  setting  the  Republican 
house  in  order  and  in  casting  the  money-changers  out  of  the 
temple,  some  man  of  foresight  and  power  will  come  forward  to 
wage  the  battle  in  behalf  of  the  people.  The  great  cause  will  pro- 
duce the  champion,  as  it  produced  Lincoln,  and  later  Cleveland. 

The  Taft  administration  was  but  a  month  old  when  the 
Evening  Post  warned  it  again  that  the  Payne-Aldrlch 
bill  contained  provisions  that  would  drive  it  from  power 
unless  the  President  intervened  vigorously  to  remove 
them.  When  DoUiver  led  the  attack  of  the  West  upon 
the  tricks  and  robberies  of  the  bill,  charging  that  hoggish 
manufacturers  had  obtained  permission  from  Aldrich  to 
write  their  own  tariff  clauses,  the  editors  rejoiced  that 
never  before  had  the  public  been  so  awake  to  greed  and 
dishonesty  of  protection.  When  it  found  that  its  appeals 
to  Taft  to  take  action  were  in  vain,  it  was  totally  dis- 
gusted with  the  President.  His  Winona  speech  it  thought 
indefensible.  Like  the  rest  of  the  country,  it  soon  dis- 
covered that  he  had  marked  deficiencies  for  his  great 
office.  In  its  view,  Taft  was  wrong  in  the  Ballinger  affair, 
and  in  his  initial  advocacy  of  the  remission  of  Panama 
tolls.  He  was  not  merely  a  poor  politician,  in  the  sense 
that  he  could  not  keep  an  effective  party  following,  but 
he  lacked  foresight  and  energy.  "He  has  shown  himself 
devoid  of  the  higher  imagination  in  public  affairs,  too 
little  prescient,  without  the  touch  of  quick  sympathy  and 
popular  quality  which  would  have  enabled  him  to  take 


THE  ''EVENING  POST"  SINCE  1900     573 

arms  against  a  sea  of  troubles,"  wrote  Mr.  Ogden  as  the 
administration  ended. 

Yet  the  Evening  Post  did  not  believe  that  Taft's  ad- 
ministration was  the  black  betrayal  and  wretched  failure 
which  many  said  in  19 12  it  was.  The  country  had  many 
services  to  thank  him  for,  it  said,  and  his  reputation  would 
certainly  benefit  by  the  lapse  of  time.  As  between  Taft 
and  Roosevelt  in  19 12,  it  decidedly  preferred  Taft.  In 
an  editorial  as  the  year  191 1  closed,  "A  Square  Deal  for 
Taft,"  it  accused  the  former  President  of  hitting  below 
the  belt.  "Roosevelt  is  deliberately  allowing  himself  to 
be  used  against  the  President,  and  allowing  it  ambigu- 
ously, equivocally,  and  not  in  the  honorable  and  manly 
fashion  which  he  has  been  forever  advocating.  .  .  . 
Why  does  he  not  frankly  state  the  grounds  of  his  opposi- 
tion to  Taft?"  When  Roosevelt  did  throw  his  hat  into 
the  ring,  the  editors  deemed  his  cause  in  many  respects 
weak.  They  felt  that  his  denunciation  of  Taft  was 
malignantly  overdone.  Recognizing  many  fine  qualities 
in  the  Progressive  movement,  they  believed  that  no  new 
party  could  come  into  being  without  some  one  compelling 
moral  or  economic  issue;  that  a  program  of  all  the  vir- 
tues might  be  attractive,  but  did  not  afford  a  sound  politi- 
cal basis,  at  least  when  coupled  with  the  fortunes  of  an 
ambitious  self-seeker.  Parts  of  the  Roosevelt  program, 
notably  his  proposal  for  the  recall  of  judicial  decisions, 
and  his  plan  for  regulating  the  trusts  by  commission, 
struck  the  Post  as  thoroughly  unsound. 

Supporting  Woodrow  Wilson  throughout  the  19 12 
campaign,  the  Evening  Post  also  supported  almost  all  the  ^ 
measures  of  his  first  administration.  The  Federal  Re- 
serve Act  and  the  Underwood  tariff  it  hailed  as  reforms 
of  the  first  magnitude.  The  various  acts  for  the  better 
use  and  protection  of  our  national  domain  met  its  ap- 
proval. While  several  influential  New  York  newspapers 
attacked  Wilson's  policy  of  "watchful  waiting"  in  Mex- 
ican affairs,  the  Post  held  it  both  wise  and  courageous,  and 
regretted  only  the  temporary  interruption  of  it  by  our 
attack  upon  Vera  Cruz.    The  editors  welcomed  the  Jones 


574  THE  EVENING  POST 

Act  for  a  larger  measure  of  Philippine  autonomy,  thought 
well  of  Bryan's  *'cooling-off  treaties,"  and  were  grateful 
for  the  President's  veto  of  the  literacy  test  bill.  Indeed, 
the  paper's  support  would  have  been  unhesitatingly  given 
to  President  Wilson  at  the  beginning  of  the  campaign  of 
19 1 6  had  his  opponent  been  a  less  able  man  than  Hughes, 
and  had  it  not  been  deeply  offended  that  midsummer  by 
the  surrender  of  the  President  and  Congress  to  the  threat 
of  a  great  railway^trike,  and  their  enactment  of  the 
eight-hour  day  law/  As  it  was,  shortly  before  November 
I  the  Evening  Post  came  out  for  Wilson's  reelection. 

The  opening  of  the  Great  War  was  a  stunning  surprise 
to  the  Evening  Post,  as  to  all  America.  But  it  was  less 
completely  taken  unawares  than  were  some  papers  which 
had  failed  to  watch  minutely  the  drift  of  affairs  in  Europe. 
On  July  27,  in  an  editorial  analyzing  the  bellicose  con- 
tents of  a  number  of  German  and  Austrian  papers — the 
Hamburg  Fremdenblatt,  the  Deutsches  Volkshlatt,  the 
Neues  Wiener  Tagehlatt,  the  Reichspost,  and  the  Neue 
Freie  Presse  of  Vienna — it  gave  a  remarkably  accurate 
view,  under  the  title  "War  Madness,"  of  what  was  going 
on  under  the  surface  in  Europe.  When  Germany  entered 
Belgium  its  condemnation  was  instant.  "By  this  action 
Germany  has  shown  herself  ready  to  lift  an  outlaw  hand 
against  the  whole  of  Western  Europe."  The  paper  did 
not  know  whether  Germany  directly  caused  and  desired 
the  war;  but  it  believed  that  she  indirectly  caused  it,  and 
that  she  failed  to  prevent  it  when  she  might  easily  have 
done  so.  Before  fighting  had  fairly  commenced  it  ven- 
tured upon  a  prophecy  which  the  fate  of  three  thrones  has 
fully  justified: 

The  human  mind  cannot  yet  begin  to  grasp  the  consequences. 
One  of  them,  however,  seems  plainly  written  in  the  book  of  the 
future.  It  is  that,  after  this  most  awful  and  most  wicked  of  all 
wars  is  over,  the  power  of  life  and  death  over  millions  of  men, 
the  right  to  decree  the  ruin  of  industry  and  commerce  and  finance, 
with  untold  human  misery  stalking  through  the  land  like  "a 
plague,  will  be  taken  away  from  three  men.  No  safe  prediction 
of  actual  results  of  battle  can  be  made.     Dynasties  may  crumble 


THE  "EVENING  POST"  SINCE  1900     575 

before  all  is  done,  empires  change  their  form  of  government.  But 
whatever  happens,  Europe — humanity — v^^ill  not  settle  back  into 
a  position  enabling  three  Emperors  to  give,  on  their  individual 
choice  or  whim,  the  signal  for  destruction  and  massacre. 

The  whole  course  of  the  war  only  confirmed  the  Eve- 
ning Posfs  original  view  that  the  side  of  right  and  justice 
was  the  Allied  side.  When  the  Lusitania  was  sunk,  Mr. 
Ogden's  indictment  of  ''The  Outlaw  German  Govern- 
ment" was  one  of  the  most  stirring  editorials  that  ever 
appeared  in  the  Evening  Post  or  Nation;  an  editorial 
which  asked  the  American  people  to  show  themselves  "too 
firmly  planted  on  right  to  be  hysterical,  and  too  determined 
on  obtaining  justice  to  bluster,"  but  which  expressed  con- 
fidence that  the  true  and  righteous  judgments  of  the  Lord 
would  yet  be  visited  upon  the  German  war  leaders.  When 
President  Wilson  asked  the  American  people  to  be  neutral 
in  thought  and  word,  the  Evening  Post  declared  that  our 
moral  sentiment  could  not  be  neutral — that  it  must  be 
with  England  and  France.  The  Allied  infringements 
upon  our  rights  In  the  enforcement  of  the  blockade  It  at- 
tacked, but  It  constantly  emphasized  the  fact  that  Ger- 
many's violations  of  International  law  were  far  graver. 
In  that  they  affected  life  and  liberty,  not  merely  property. 

Long  hoping  that  American  participation  In  the  war 
could  be  honorably  avoided,  the  Evening  Post  did  not 
want  peace  at  any  price.  It  regarded  war  as  a  lesser 
calamity  than  the  defeat  of  the  Allies,  or  than  supine 
submission  to  Germany's  unrestricted  submarine  activity. 
When  that  activity  was  announced  It  was  plain  that  we 
should  soon  be  Involved  In  the  conflict,  and  the  editors 
followed  Mr.  Wilson's  course  with  general.  If  not  perfect, 
approval.  In  the  difficult  days  of  the  crisis.  The  Pres- 
ident's address  to  Congress  asking  for  a  declaration  of 
war  was  warmly  praised  by  the  Evening  Post,  as  placing 
our  national  motives  and  objects  upon  the  most  elevated 
plane.  "All  told,"  It  said  on  April  3,  "Americans  may 
take  satisfaction  In  the  fact  that  they  enter  the  war  only 
after  the  display  of  the  greatest  patience  by  the  govern- 


576  THE  EVENING  POST 

ment,  only  after  grievous  and  repeated  wrongs,  and  upon 
the  highest  possible  grounds.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  country  will  respond  instantly  to  the  President's 
leadership."  The  Evening  Post  was  not  for  restricted, 
but  complete  participation  in  the  conflict.  It  early  took 
issue  with  the  administration  and  with  dominant  public 
sentiment  in  opposing  the  raising  of  the  army  by  draft, 
holding  that  any  appearance  of  forced  military  service 
was  un-American,  that  a  volunteer  army  would  show  a 
superior  spirit,  and  that  while  conscription  might  become 
necessary  later,  it  should  be  postponed  until  our  tradi- 
tional method  of  recruiting  failed  to  bring  enough  men. 
But  the  Evening  Post  accepted  the  draft  loyally,  and  gave 
its  workings  the  cordial  praise  they  deserved.  From  the 
beginning  of  the  war  it  looked  forward  eagerly  to  the 
establishment  of  a  world  organization  to  preserve  inter- 
national peace  everywhere;  and  in  19 19  and  1920  it  was 
among  the  staunchest  advocates  of  the  League  of 
Nations. 

Mr.  Ogden  had  the  assistance  throughout  his  editor- 
ship of  a  staff  as  able  as  that  which  Mr.  Godkin  had 
gathered  about  him.  Frank  Jewett  Mather,  jr.,  served  as 
an  editorial  writer  from  1900  to  the  close  of  1906,  and 
as  he  says,  gradually  specialized  in  writing  upon  European 
politics  and  art  criticism.  Oswald  Garrison  Villard,  son 
of  Henry  Villard,  was  called  into  the  office  from  the 
Philadelphia  Press  in  1897,  and  remained  one  of  the 
most  active  of  the  editorial  writers  until  19 17.  A  bril- 
liant young  man  from  Wisconsin,  Philip  L.  Allen,  whose 
premature  death  was  a  loss  to  journalism,  advanced  rung 
by  rung,  and  was  an  editorial  writer  from  1904  to  1908. 
Simeon  Strunsky  joined  the  staff  in  1906.  Three  years 
later  Dr.  Fabian  Franklin,  long  professor  of  mathematics 
at  Johns  Hopkins,  and  from  1895  to  1906  editor  of  the 
Baltimore  Sun,  became  associate  editor;  and  Royal  J. 
Davis  entered  the  circle  in  19 10.  Paul  Elmer  More,  who 
was  literary  editor  of  the  Evening  Post  after  1903,  and 
became  editor  of  the  Nation  in  1909,  contributed  to  the 
editorial  page;  and  there  was  a  considerable  list  of  men 


THE  ''EVENING  POST"  SINCE  1900      577 

who  served  for  short  periods,  especially  in  summers — 
Stuart  P.  Sherman,  Hutchins  Hapgood,  Walter  B.  Pit- 
kin, H.  Parker  Willis,  and  others. 

As  the  editorial  staff  existed  when  the  European  War 
began,  its  members  constituted  a  group  of  comprehensive 
tastes  and  abilities.  Mr.  Ogden  decided  all  questions  of 
policy,  wrote  almost  all  the  leading  political  editorials, 
and  in  addition  ranged  over  a  wide  field  of  social  and 
literary  comment,  treating  everything  with  an  incisive, 
pungent  style  peculiarly  his  own.  Dr.  Franklin  wrote 
upon  economic  subjects  with  unfailing  sureness,  treated 
educational  and  scientific  topics  with  the  authority  of  a 
scholar,  and  was  masterly  in  exploding  any  fallacy  which 
for  the  moment  had  assumed  importance,  and  the  detec- 
tion of  which  required  the  combination  of  strong  common 
sense  and  logical  subtlety.  /Mr.  Villard  was  interested 
in  a  wide  range  of  humanitarian  subjects,  having  made 
the  Post,  for  example,  an  outstanding  champion  of  the 
negro  race,  while  he  paid  special  attention  to  military  and 
naval  affairs.  I  International  politics  was  left  very  largely 
to  Simeon  Strunsky,  whose  pen  was  also  indispensable  in 
the  humorous  or  satiric  treatment  of  current  subjects, 
and  whose  knowledge  was  encyclopaedic.  Mr.  Noyes  con- 
tinued to  write  regularly  upon  financial  topics,  while  Mr. 
Davis — who  was  also  literary  editor,  19 14-1920 — had 
given  special  attention  to  certain  phases  of  politics. 

In  its  news  department  the  Evening  Post  had  suffered 
a  heavy  blow  in  1897,  when  the  city  editor,  H.  J.  Wright, 
became  editor  of  the  Commercial  Advertiser,  and  took 
with  him  Norman  Hapgood  and  Lincoln  Steffens.  But 
it  quickly  recovered,  and  under  a  series  of  managing 
editors — O.  G.  Villard,  Hammond  Lamont,  H.  J.  Lea- 
royd,  E.  G.  Lowry,  J.  P.  Gavit,  and  the  present  head, 
Charles  McD.  Puckette — has  continued  steadily  to  im- 
prove. The  list  of  reporters  since  the  beginning  of  the 
century  contains  many  names  known  outside  the  news- 
paper world.  Among  them  are  Burton  J.  Hendrick,  Nor- 
man Duncan,  Freeman  Tilden,  and  Lawrence  Perry  as 
authors;  A.  E.  Thomas  and  Bayard  Veiller  as  play* 


578  THE  EVENING  POST 

Wrights;  George  Henry  Payne,  Ralph  Graves,  and  Arthur 
Warner  as  editors;  and  Rheta  Chllde  Dorr,  Walter 
Arndt,  and  Robert  E.  MacAlarney.  The  Washington 
correspondence  has  always  maintained  a  high  degree  of 
excellence.  The  Washington  bureau  was  In  charge  of 
Francis  E.  Leupp  from  1889  to  1904,  when  he  was  ap- 
pointed Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs;  he  was  suc- 
ceeded by  E.  G.  Lowry,  J.  P.  Gavit,  and  then  by  David 
Lawrence,  two  of  whose  exploits — his  "scoop"  on 
Bryan's  resignation,  and  his  remarkable  prediction  of  the 
States  which  would  give  Wilson  the  Presidency  in  19 16 — 
made  a  considerable  noise  in  their  time.  The  present 
correspondents  are  Mark  Sullivan  and  Harold  Phelps 
Stoi^es. 

[J^he  war  brought  a  series  of  rapid  changes  in  the  own- 
ership and  management  of  the  Evening  Post.  The  finan- 
cial control  of  the  paper  had  long  been  in  the  hands  of 
Mr.  Villard,  who  for  more  than  fifteen  years  was  presi- 
dent of  the  company,  and  had  given  unremitting  attention 
to  the  maintenance  of  its  high  business  standards,  as  well 
as  to  the  Improvement  of  Its  news  and  other  features.  At 
the  end  of  July,  19 17,  Mr.  Villard  gave  an  option  for  the 
purchase  of  his  share  of  the  paper  to  his  associates,  and 
a  few  days  later  it  was  announced  that  Mr.  Thomas  W. 
Lamont  had  bought  it;  thus  terminating  the  long  and 
public-spirited  proprietorship  by  the  Villard  famllyj 
Friends  of  the  paper  must  ever  be  grateful  to  Mr.  Lamont 
for  carrying  It  through  the  next  few  years  of  excessive 
wartime  costs.  He  placed  Mr.  Edwin  F.  Gay,  widely 
known  as  the  dean  of  the  Harvard  Graduate  School  of 
Business  Administration  (1908-19),  in  charge  in  Janu- 
ary, 1920,  as  president  of  the  Evening  Post  Company; 
and  two  years  later,  in  the  first  days  of  1922,  the  owner- 
ship of  the  Post  passed  Into  the  hands  of  a  syndicate  or- 
ganized by  Mr.  Gay.  Meanwhile,  early  in  1920  Mr. 
Ogden  had  resigned  the  editorship,  and  Mr.  Strunsky 
took  charge  of  the  editorial  page. 

With  the  marked  broadening  of  the  newspaper  in  the 
last  two  years,  and  the  innovations  in  its  form,  its  readers 


THE  "EVENING  POST"  SINCE  1900     579 

are  as  familiar  as  they  are  with  the  fact  that  Its  essential 
spirit  Is  unaltered.  The  connection  with  the  Nation  hav- 
ing ceased  In  19 17,  Its  editorial  page  has  abandoned  the 
narrow  columns  and  long  series  of  uncaptloned  editorial 
paragraphs  which  had  marked  It  since  188 1.  The  liter- 
ary pages  passed  In  1920  Into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Henry  S. 
Canby,  who  has  made  thd Evening  Post  Literary  Review 
esteemed  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  as  easily  the 
foremost  publication  of  Its  kind  in  Americal?  The  volume 
of  news  has  been  greatly  Increased,  fresh  departments 
have  been  added,  Illustrations  given  their  proper  place, 
and  the  appeal  of  the  paper  broadened  without  lowering 
its  standards.  In  a  period  not  favorable  to  Increase  of 
circulation,  that  of  the  Evening  Post  has  risen,  under  Mr. 
Gay,  to  the  highest  point  In  its  history. 

But  it  is  the  old  Evening  Post  still;  a  newspaper  which, 
with  a  history  one  of  the  longest  and  richest  In  American 
journalism,  has  from  generation  to  generation  preserved 
the  same  sterling  character.  The  objects  of  Its  con- 
ductors may  be  easily  stated.  They  wish  to  keep  it  as 
public-spirited  as  the  Evening  Post  of  Hamilton  and 
Coleman;  as  ardent  In  defense  of  democracy  and  the  op- 
pressed as  the  Evening  Po5^  of  Leggett;  as  dignified,  ele- 
vated, and  fearless  as  the  Evening  Post  of  Bryant,  Bige- 
low,  and  Godwin;  as  keen,  intellectual,  and  aggressive  as 
the  Evening  Post  of  Godkin  and  Schurz,  Ogden  and 
Horace  White;  and  to  add  what  they  can  to  this  noble 
record. 


4 


(\  _... 


V 


INDEX 


Abolitionists,  E.  P.  defends,  145-148 

Abyssinia,  505 

Adams,  Charles,  112 

Adams,  Charles  FoUen,  contributes,  414 

Adams,    Charles   Francis,    Sr.,   243,    394, 

S13 
Adams,  Henry,  449,  554 
Adams,  John,  9,  10;  death,  89,  90 
Adams,  J.  Q.,  82,  124,  131;    and  "gag" 

resolution,  170,  182. 
Adee,  A.  A.,  414 
Advertisements,  see  Evening  Post 
Advertiser,  Boston,  460 
Alaska,  purchased,  503 
Albion,  The  355,  407 
Alden,  H.  M.,  317,  318 
Aldrich,  T.  B.,  offered  literary  editorship, 

413.  417 
AUston,  Washington,  107,  125 


Altgeld,  J.  P.,  SCO,  S02,  542 
American  Citizen,  The,  9,  12,  18,  i 


27 


9,  25, 


"American  Flag,  The,"  104 
"American  Notes,"  Dickens's,  223 
Anderson,  Henry  J.,   125,   127;    on  staff, 

163 
Anderson,  Major  Robert,  273 
Anthon,  Prof.  Charles,  125 
Antietam,  Battle  of,  294 
Apartment  houses  introduced,  367ff. 
Appomattox,  314,  323 
Armistad  Affair,  172 
Army  and  Navy  Journal,  The,  3r8 
Arthur,  Chester  A.,  450,  451 
Arden,  Francis,  23,  109 
Arndt,  Walter  T.,  578 
Arrears,  of  subscriptions,  93 
Asphalt,  E.  P.  advocates,  37s 
Aster,  John  Jacob,  18,  46,  106,  131 
Astor,  William  B.,  273,  364,  385 
Astor  House,  opened,  162 
Astor  Library,  364 
Astor  Place  riot,  226 
Atlanta  captured,  310 
Aurora,  Philadelphia,  9,  13,  31,  So,  94 
Audubon,  John  J.,  visits  E.  P.,  191 
Australian  ballot,  advocated,  537 

"Ballads  and  Other  Poems"  (Longfel- 
low's), 219 

Ballinger  Affair,  572 

Baltimore  Convention,  in  1844,  176,  177 

Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  opened,  78 

Bancroft,  George,  178,  191,  215,  329,  339 

Bandelier,  A.  F.,  contributes,  527,  554 

Banks,  N.  P.,  251,  321 

Barker,  Jacob,  100 

Barnard,  Frederick,  341 

Barnard,  Judge,  536 

Barnburners,  E.  P.  joins,  243 

Barney,  Hiram,  265,  277 

Barnum,  P.  T.,  366 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  255,  312,  328,  338; 
praises  E.  P.,  464 


Bellairs,  E.  G.,  correspondent,  552,  553 
Bellamy,  Mrs.  Frederick  P.,  quoted,  546 
Belmont,  August,  304,  485 
Bellows,  Dr.  Henry,  361 
Belshazzar's  Feast,  464 
Benjamin,  Judah  P.,  327 
Benjamin,  Park,  contributes,  325 
Bennett,  James  Gordon,  early  career,  156; 
revolutionizes    New    York    journalism, 
i57ff. ;   social  ostracism  of,    160;    later 
mention,  244,  27 iff.,  286,  326,  537 
Bennett,  James  Gordon,  Jr.,  511 
Benson,  Egbert,   54 
Benton,   Thomas    Hart,   contributes,   234, 

235,  242,  247,  251 
Beranger,  240,  241 
Bergh,  Henry,  E.  P.  defends,  375 
Berlin  Decree,  39 
Bernhardt,  Sarah,  435 
Biddle,  Commodore  James,  183 
Biddle,  Nicholas,  153,  356 
Bigelow,  John,  216;     career,   228;    char- 
acter,   228,    229;     becomes  part   owner 
and  editor,  230;    political  activity,  231; 
controversy  with  Sparks,  231-234;    ob- 
tains Benton's  book,  235;    business  acu- 
men, 236-240;    and  Sainte-Beuve,  239, 
240;      Minister    to    France,    241,    286, 
311,     313.     341-343;      his     "Jamaica," 
346;    on  Bryant's  style,  347;    as  Bry- 
ant's associate,  352,  358,  359;    as  Til- 
den's  friend,  400-405 ;    later  mentions, 
424,  438,  439 
Binns,  John,  21,  53 
Binney,  J.  G.,  171 

Bishop,  Joseph  Bucklin,  joins  E.  P.,  455; 
and  Mugwump  campaign,  461;    and  the 
fight  against  Tammany,  481;    as  asso- 
ciate editor,   526;  on  election  of    1900, 
568,  569 
Bismarck,  452 
Black  Friday,  392,  425 
Bladensburg,  55 

Blaine,  James  G.,  394,  446,  447;    E.  P. 

attacks,   450;     campaign  of    1884,  459- 

466;    Secretary  of  State,  468,  471,  472 

Blair,  Francis  P.,  251,  314 

Blair,    Montgomery,    Postmaster-General, 

285 
Bland  Act,  E.  P.  attacks,  436 
Bland,  Richard,  silver  leader,  499 
Blankenburg,     Rudolph,     writes     Schurz, 

445 
Bleecker,  Anthony,  15,  18,  97,  114 
Bleecker,  Leonard,  18 
Bliss  &  White,  125 
Blockade  of  South,  284,  286 
Blunt,  Orison,  runs  for  Mayor,  378 
Board  of  Health  organized,  371 
Boggs,  W.  G.,  part  owner,  employee,  230, 

231,  431 
Book-reviews,  early,  107-111;     1830-1855, 
207,  2i6ff.;    1865-1881,  406-419;    1881- 
1901,  553-560 
Boole,  F.  I.  A.,  Tammany  leader,  378 
Booth,  Edwin,  and  star  system,  565 


681 


582 


INDEX 


Booth,  John  Wilkes,  death,  318 

Booth,  Junius  Brutus,  his  debut,  118; 
career  ends,  564 

Boutelle,  Representative,  Charles  A.,  on 
Spanish  War,  515 

Boutwell,  George  S.,  as  Secretary  of 
Treasury,  392 

Bowles,  Samuel,  362;  and  Liberal  Re- 
publican movement,  394-400 

Boyce,  S.  S.,  reporter,  319 

Boyesen,  H.  H.,  contributes,  527 

Brace,  Charles  Loring,  485,  524 

"Bracebridge  Hall,"  Irving's,  reviewed, 
III 

Bradford,  Gamaliel,  contributes,  559 

Bradley,  Gen.  Stephen  T.,  23 

"Bramble,  Matthew,"  contributes,  100 

Brevoort,  Henry,  contributes,  95,  109, 
no 

Bridges,  Robert,  on  staff,  439 

Briggs,  James  A.,  on  Lincoln  at  Cooper 
Union,  260 

Bristow,  Ex-Gov.  Benj.   H.,  trustee,  444 

Bronson  &  Chauncey,  91 

Brooklyn,  224,  365;  union  with  New 
York,  494 

Brooks,  James  and  Erastus,  found  the 
Express,  156;  later  careers,  262,  271, 
304 

Brooks,  Preston  S.,  assaults  Sumner, 
252,  359 

Brown,  Charles  Brockden,  15;  works  re- 
viewed, 109,  no 

Brown,  John,  at  Harper's  Ferry,  256-258 

Brownell,  W.  C,  449,  554.  SS8 

Bryce,  James,  443,  448,  523,  532,  553; 
as  a  contributor,  556,  557,  559 

Bryan,  Wm.  J.,  and  campaign  of  1896, 
500-503;  and  campaign  of  1900,  568, 
569;    as  Secretary  of  State,  574 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  acquaintance 
with  Coleman,  21-23,  96,  97;  comes 
to  New  York,  121;  associate  editor 
E.  P.,  122;  early  labors  on  E.  P., 
125-133;  becomes  editor-in-chief,  134; 
in  Europe,  138;  returns  in  1836,  163; 
rescues  E.  P.  from  failure,  166-169; 
free  speech  and  free  soil,  170-173;  in 
campaign  of  1840  and  Mexican  War, 
173-179;  travels,  182,  183;  buys  Ros- 
lyn,  190;  literary  friends,  191;  advo- 
cates Central  Park,  192-201;  begins 
fight  for  international  copyright,  211- 
216;  literary  judgments,  216-224; 
asks  Bigelow  to  join  E.  P.,  230;  anti- 
slavery  utterances,  242-266;  ardent 
supporter  of  Union  and  emancipation 
in  Civil  War,  267-315;  mild  recon- 
struction views,  326-337;  character  as 
an  editor,  338-359;  becomes  rich,  359- 
362;  influence,  362,  363;  and  Tweed 
Ring,  386,  387;  in  elections  of  1872 
and  1876,  389-405;  death,  420 
Bryant,  Mrs.  W.  C.,  on  Bryant's  over- 
work, 179. 
Bryant  Building,  412 
Buckingham,  J.  T.,  defends  free  speech, 

148 
Budget,  executive,  451 
Buell,  General,  313 
Bull  Run,  battle  of,  284,  285,  323;  second 

battle  of,  291 
Burch,  Robert,  managing  editor,  351,  455 
Burnham,  Michael,  125,  138 
Burns,  the  slave,  250 
Burnside,  Gen.  Ambrose,  297,  298,  322 
Burr,  Aaron,  9,  10,  25,  39,  51,  107 


Butler,  Benj.  F.,  459,  464 

Calhoun,    John    C.,    E.    P.    characterizes, 

21,  29,  35 
Callender,  J.  T.,   12,  20,  36 
Cameron,    Simon,    in    Lincoln's    Cabinet, 

277,  278 
Canby,  Henry  Seidel,  579 
Carey,    Matthew,    on    international    copy- 
right, 215,  417 
Carleton,  C.  C,  322 
Carrier-pigeons,  early   use  of,   82;     later 

use,  161 
Carter,  James  C,  485,  524 
Cartoons,  first,  86 
Cass,  Lewis,  £.  P.  opposes  for  President, 

243,  247 
Censorship,  Civil  War,  321-323 
Central  Park,  E.  P.  champions,  193-201 
Cervera  defeated,  553 
Chancellorsville,  battle  of,  298,  322 
Charter,  agitation  for  a  reform,  205,  206; 
Tweed  charter,  378-388;    reform  char- 
ters, 401,  494 
Chase,  Salmon  P.,  contributes,  242,  243; 
in     Lincoln's     Cabinet,     277,     278;      a 
"radical,"  285;    corresponds  with  Bry- 
ant,  286,   290;     financial   policies,   295- 
297.  313;    on  reconstruction,  327,  334; 
for  Presidency,  390 
Chatham  Street  chapel,  riot  at,  145 
Chandler,  William  E.,  450 
Cheetham,  James,  12,  21,  25,  29,  31,  32, 

48,  50,  51,  81 
Child,  Lydia  Maria,  294 
Chinese  question,  451 
Choate  Joseph  H.,  440,  527,  561,  562 
Cholera  epidemic  of  1832,  142 
"Christmas  in  1875,"  414 
Church,  W.  C,  318,  369 
Civil  Rights  bill,  E.  P.  advocates,  329. 
Civil    service   reform,    E.    P.    champions, 
391,   393.  405,  436,  451.  466-468,   522, 
.523,  547 
Civil  War,  267,  325 
Civil  War  poetry  in  E.  P.,  323-325 
Clark,  E.  P.,  associate  edit<Jr,  526 
Clarkin,  Franklin,  war  correspondent,  552 
Clay,  Henry,  46,  50,  127;    E.  P.  charac- 
terizes,    143,     173;      "Raleigh    letter," 
177;      Compromise    of     1850,    244-247, 
454,  537 
Cleveland,   Grover,  on  Schurz,  446,  450, 
451;    E.  P.  supports  in  1884,  462-466; 
as  President,  466-468;    re-election,  469, 
470;     and    Venezuela    affair,    470-475; 
and  silver,  498,  499;     and   New  York 
Journal,  511 
Cobb,  Howell,  254,  264 
Cobbett,  William,  13,  104 
Cockran,  Bourke,  and  Tammany,  480-495 
Coghlan,  Charles  and  Rose,  564 
Colden,  Cadwallader,  11,  108 
Cole,  Thomas,  338 

Coleman,    William,    early    career,    14-17; 
becomes  editor-in-chief,    17-20;    charac- 
ter,   21-24;      relations    with    Hamilton, 
25-34;    Federalist  views,  39-47;    meth- 
ods as  editor,  46-51;    in  War  of   181 2, 
52-62;     comments   on   city    affairs,    63- 
76;      and    "Croaker"    poets,     101-105; 
dramatic  tastes,    112-120;     death,    133, 
134 
Colored  Orphan  Asylum,  burned,  307 
Columbian,  the  New  York,  95 
Commercial,    New    York,    128,    246,    252, 
342 


INDEX 


583 


Commercial,  Cincinnati,  390,  462 

Commercial  Advertiser,  New  York,  12, 
77,  95,  108,  117,  128,  321,  404,  439, 
440,  550 

Committee  of  Seventy,  in  Tweed  Affair, 
388 

Concrete  sidewalks,  first  in  New  York, 
36s 

Conkling,  Roscoe,  450,  451 

Connolly,  Richard  B.,  in  Tweed  Affair, 
376-388 

Conservation,  448 

Constitution,  frigate,  52,  53,  83 

Cooke,  George  Frederick,    115 

Cooper,  Fenimore,  visits  E.  P.,  190,  191; 
last  years,  206,  215,  216;  E.  P.  on 
"Deerslayer,"  222;  contributes  to 
E.  P.,  223,  224,  225;    mentioned,  338 

Cooper,  Peter,  524,  539 

Copyright,  international,  E.  P.  contends 
for,  209,  212-216,  417,  418,  560-562 

Corbett,  Sergeant  Boston,  contributes,  318 

Courier  and  Enquirer,  New  York,  137, 
146;  assails  E.  P.,  147,  154;  news 
enterprise,  155;  attacks  Cooper,  223; 
supports  Fremont,  251;  absorbed  by 
World,  270 

Courrier  des  Etats  Unis,  on  Dickens, 
211;  on  secession,  272;  on  emancipa- 
tion, 295;  a  "copperhead"  paper,  301 

Cox,  Dr.  F.  F.,  abolitionist,  145 

Cox,  Gen.  Jacob,  393,  394.  399,  559- 

Cox,  Kenyon,  contributes,  554 

Cranch,  Christopher  Pearse,  contributes, 
189,  324 

Crawford,  W.  C,  supported  in  1824,  124 

Crime  in  New  York  in  1839,  192 

Crimean  War,  news  of,  189;    504 

Crittenden  Compromise,  272-274 

"Croaker"  poems,   100-107 

Croker,  Richard,  478,  480,  494,  518,  550 

Croton  Aqueduct,  194,  196,  197 

Cruger,  Henry,   106 

Crystal  Palace,  205 

Cushing,  Caleb,  341 

Cushman,  Charlotte,  benefit  for,  339; 
retires,  564 

Cuba,  war  in,  506-515;  E.  P.  opposes 
annexation  of,   Si5ff. 

Curtis,  George  W.,  362,   524 

Cutting,  R.  Fulton,  and  W.  Bayard,  485 

Daily  Advertiser,  New  York,  12 

Daily  Gazette,  New  York,  12,  76,  93,  94, 
95,  104 

Daily  Graphic,  New  York,  406. 

Daily  News,  New  York,  252;  on  seces- 
sion, 271-283;  mob  threatens,  301; 
"copperhead,"  302ff. ;  calls  war  a  fail- 
ure, 312;    on  reconstruction,  326 

Daly,  Augustin,  his  stock  company,  564 

Dana,  Charles  A.,  326;  on  impeachment, 
33iff.,  349,  363;  on  Tweed  Charter, 
382;  supports  Grant,  390;  supports 
Greeley,  399,  434;  campaign  of  1884, 
464ff. ;  and  Cleveland,  466,  469;  a 
Tammany  adherent,  476,  485;  and 
free  silver,  502;  epigrams,  532:  lack 
of  principle,  538;  character  as  editor, 
546,  547 

Dana,  R.  H.,  Sr.,  121,  123,  162,  166, 
216,  223 

Dana,  R.  H.,  Jr.,  339 

Danish  West  Indies,  annexation  of,  503 

Darwin,  Charles,  Bryce  upon,  557 

Davenport,  Fanny,  564 

Davis,  Jefferson,  272,  274,  299,  306,  327 


Davis,  R.  B.,  109 

Davis,  Royal  J.,  literary  editor,  editorial 

writer,  576,  577 
Day,  Benjamin  H.,  founds  Sun,  157. 
Day  Book,  New  York,  on  secession,  271- 

283;    mob  threatens,  301 
Decatur,  Stephen,  86 
"Deerslayer,  The,"  reviewed,   222 
De  Lome,  Dupuy,  dismissed,  507,  508 
Delta,  New  Orleans,  184,  185 
Democratic  Review,  224,  229 
Dennie,  Joseph,    100 
Dewey,  Chester  P.,  correspondent,  258 
Dewey,  Orville,  225 

Dewey,  Admiral  George,  at  Manila,  514 
Dicey,    A.    V.,   on   Godkin,    531;     a   con- 
tributor, 558 
Dicey,  Edward,  on  J.  G.  Bennett,  160 
Dickens,  Charles,  192,  207;    visit  in  1842, 

209ff. ;    E.  P.  upon,  223,  353 
District    of    Columbia,    emancipation    in, 

172 
Dithmar,  Henry,  foreman,  342,  343,  354, 

422 
Dix,  John  A.,  329 
Dodge,  William  E.,  374 
DoUiver,  Senator  Jonathan  P.,  472 
Dom  Pedro,  Emperor,  visits  E.  P.,  356 
Dorr,  Rheta  Childe,  578 
Douglas,     Stephen     A.,    E.     P.     attacks, 

247ff. ;    debate  with  Lincoln,  258ff. 
Downing,  A.  J.,  and  Central  Park,   193, 

196 
Draft  Riots,  300,  305ff. 
Drake,  Joseph   Rodman,   96;     contributes 

"Croaker"  poems,   100-107 
Drama,   in  early  E.   P.,    111-119;   before 

Civil  War,  226,  227;    after  Civil  War, 

421;    under  J.  R.  Towse,  562-565 
Dred  Scott  decision,  2S4ff. 
Drew,  John,  564 
Duane,  William,  as  editor,  12,  21,  23,  31, 

50,   51,  94 
Du  Chaillu,  320 
Duncan,  Norman,  577 
Dunlap,  William,   15,  iii,   113,   114,   125 
Dupont,  Admiral  S.  F.,  318 
Dwight,   Theodore,    as    Federalist   editor, 

17,  23,  45,  57,  124 


Eacker,  George  L.,  fights  Hamilton's  son, 

28 
Eggleston,     Edward,     412;      contributes, 

414,  554 
Eggleston,  George  Gary,  348;    on  Bryant, 

354-358;     as    literary    editor,    412-419; 

on  Parke  Godwin,  435;    resigns,  449 
Elevated  railways,  movement  for,  372ff. 
Elevators,  first,  365 
Electoral  Commission  of  1876,  405 
Emancipation,  293-295 
Embargo,  42-44,  46 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  lectures  reported, 

180,   225;     E.   P.    upon,   221-223,   339; 

"Fortune  of  the  Republic,"  415 
Enquirer,  Richmond,  235,  248 
Ericsson,    John,    and    E.    P.    press,    237', 

and  Civil  War,  286 
Erie  Railway,  early  career,  159 
Evarts,  William  M.,  229,  334,   338,  339, 

428 
Evening  Post,  weekly,  begins  in  1842,  179 
Evening  Post,  The,  see  table  of  contents: 

Advertisements  in,  72,   73;    91-92,  94, 
135,  153,  238,  360,  361,  430,  431,  567 

Circulation  of,  18,  20,  77,  92,  93,  189, 


584 


INDEX 


Evening  Post — Continued 

237.    338,    268,    326,    359,    360,    361, 
474,  530 
Finances  of,  92-95,  123,   124,  135,  136, 
153,     190,    236,    238,    239,    359-362, 
426,  427,  433,  566,  567 
News  pages,  78-90,   125,   179,   180-189, 
316-323,  421-426,  546-566 
Express,  New  York,  221,  252,  256;  views 
of   secession,   267-283;     mob   threatens, 
301;     on    reconstruction,    326ff.;     342; 
in  election  of  1872,  399 
Farragut,  David,  314 
Fawcett,  Edgar,  contributes,  414 
Federal  aid  to  schools,  451 
Fenton,  R.  E.,  397 
Fessenden,  T.  G.,   109 
Fessenden,  W.  P.,  334 
Field,  Cyrus  W.,  464,  524 
Field,  D.  D.,   178,  243,  339 
Field,  Henry  M.,  364,  524 
Fields,  James  T.,  407 

Finck,    Henry   T.,   530;     on   W.    P.    Gar- 
rison, 555;    as  musical  editor,  565,  566 
Firemen,  New  York,   76;    in  forties  and 

fifties,  202-204 
Fisk,  James,  392 
Fiske,  John,   309,  415,  449;     contributes, 

.554 
Five   Points   in    New   York  history,    146, 

370 
Flagg,  Azariah,  as  controller,  205 
Foote,  Ebenezer,  16,  31,  32 
Ford,  W.  C,  527 

Forrest,     Edwin,     debut,     118;      Leggett 
upon,     225;      Parke    Godwin    quarrels 
witli,  226,  227;    retires,  564 
Fort  Dearborn  massacre,  83 
Fort  Donelson,  309 
Fourteenth  Amendment,  330 
Fowler,  Senator  G.S.,  334.  335 
Francis,  Dr.  John  W.,  24 
Franco-Prussian  War,  504 
Franklin,    Dr.    Fabian,    assistant    editor, 
^  576,  577 

Fraser's  Magazine  on  American  Press,  346 
Fredericksburg,  battle  of,  297,  322 
Freedmen's  Bureau  Bill,  329 
Freeman's  Journal,  301 
Free   Silver,   425,   446,   469;   E.   P.   cam- 
paign against,  496-503 
Free  Soil  Party,  E.  P.  supports,  243,  244 
Fremont,  Jessie  Benton,  231 
Fremont,  John  C,   231;     E.   P.   supports 
in     1856,     251,     252;      defeated,     252; 
emancipation  proclamation,  293 
Freneau,  Philip,  97 
"Friar  Lubin,"  231 
Fugitive  Slave  Law,  351 
Fuller,  Margaret,  as  critic,  215 
Fulton,  Robert,   73,  74,  78 
Funk,  Dr.  I.  K.,  and  international  copy- 
right, 561,  562 
Furness,  H.  H.,  contributes,  554 
Furness,  W.  H.,  341 

Galaxy,  The,  318,  369 
Gallatin,  Albert,  37,  46 
Gannett,  Henry,  contributes,  554 
Garfield,   James   A.,    E.    P.   supports   for 

President,   436,   437;     mentioned,   440; 

450 
Garrison,  W.  L.,  145 
Garrison,  W.  P.,  literary  editor,  441,  447, 

458,  530;    character  and  work,  554-556 
Gavit,  John  Palmer,  577,  578 
Gay,   Edwin  F.,   President  Evening  Post 

Company,  578,  579 


Gay,    Sidney    Howard,    managing   editor, 
413.  424 

Genung,  C.  H.,  contributes,  559 

George,  Henry,  political  career,  478,  479, 
494»  533 

Germany,  Schurz  on,  452;    Franco-Prus- 
sian War,  504;    war  with,  574-576 

Gettysburg,  battle  of,  298-300,  322 

Ghent,  treaty  of,  58,  59,  87 

Gibbons,  John  S.,  writes  war-song,  325 

Giddings,  Joshua,  243 

Gilbert,  Mrs.  C.  H.,  564 

Gilbert,  John,  564 

Gilder,  Richard  Watson,  411 

Gildersleeve,  Basil,  contributes,  559 

Gilman,  Daniel   Coit,  492,  493 

Gilroy,  Thomas  F.,  Tammany  career  of, 
480-495  passim. 

Gladden,  Washington,  and  reading  notices, 
430 

Gladstone,  W.  E,,  523,  557 

Goelet,  Peter  and  R.  H.,  364 

Godkin,  E.  L.,  Paris  correspondent,  318; 
on  reconstruction,  327fl. ;  and  Liberal 
Republican  movement,  394-400;  asso- 
ciate editor  E.  P.,  43SS.;  career,  442, 
443;  quarrel  with  Schurz,  454-457; 
editor-in-chief,  457,  458;  campaign  of 
1884,  459,  466;  and  Cleveland's  Ad- 
ministration, 466-470;  and  Venezuela 
affair,  470-475;  war  upon  Tammany, 
476-495;  fight  against  free  silver,  496- 
503;  Spanish  war  and  Philippines, 
5  03-5 18;  resignation,  518;  character, 
519-543;  influence,  543-545;  ideal  of 
a  newspaper,  546-550;  dispute  with 
merchants,  566,  567 

Goff,  John  W.,  and  city  reform,  487ff. 

Godwin,  Parke,  on  Bryant,  125;  on  J.  G. 
Bennett,  161;  joins  E.  P.,  163,  164, 
167,  168;  as  Bryant's  associate,  179; 
on  Bryant's  habits,  190,  191;  lectures, 
225,  229;  buys  share  of  E.  P.,  238, 
291.  313,  339.  343;  on  Bryant  as  edi- 
tor, 349,  352,  353,  354;  newspaper 
profits,     359;     392;      in     Hayes-Tildcn 


campaign,  403!?.;  413;  trustee  of  E.  P., 
420;  editor-in-chief,  420,  426-437; 
early   career,    434,    435;     sells    E.    P., 


438-440,  448 

Gordon,  "Chinese,"  505 

Gould,  Jay,  392,  439,  453,  464,  465 

Grace,  W.  R.,  runs  for  Mayor,  477 

Gracie,  Archibald,  a  founder,  17,  18, 
63 

Graham's  Magazine,   218 

Granger  movement,  436 

Grant,  Hugh  J.,  and  city  politics,  477-495 
passim. 

Grant,  U.  S.,  299,  302;  E.  P.  praises 
military  career,  309!?.;  313,  319;  E.P. 
supports  in  1868,  389;  attacks,  389- 
395 ;    for  re-election,  395-400;  459 

Graves,  Ralph,  578 

Greeley,  Horace,  founds  Tribune,  160; 
lectures,  225,  261;  on  secession,  270, 
271,  273;  on  Bull  Run,  285,  322;  on 
reconstruction,  326,  329,  334;  debates 
with  Raymond,  345,  349;  influence, 
362;  on  Tweed  Charter,  382,  390; 
candidate  for  Presidency,  395-40o; 
Watterson  upon,  435;  mentioned,  538 
}reen,  Andrew  H.,  and  Tweed  Ring,  388, 
401 

Greenback  movement,  425 

Grimes,  James  W.,  334.  335 

Griswold,  R.  W.,  217 

Gunsaulus,  F.  W.,  414 


INDEX 


585 


Hackett,  James,  106,  107,  119 

Hackett,  James  K.,  564 

Hackett,  Mrs.  John,  355,  356 

Hadley,  A.  T.,  contributes,  527 

Hagerman,  H.  B.,  48,  49 

Hale,  David,  155 

Hall,  A.   Oakey,  and  Tweed  Ring,   378- 

388 
Hall,    Capt.    Basil,   E.   P.   defends,    207, 

208 
Hallam,  Henry,  on  Sparks,  232 
Halleck,  FitzGreene,  96,  97;    "Croaker" 

poems,  100-107,  108,  216,  338 
Hallock,  Gerard,  271,  279,  301 
Halstead,  Murat,  390,  546 
Hamilton,    Alexander,    in    campaign    of 
1800,    9-11;     interest    in    press,    12-15; 
befriends  Coleman,  14-17;    helps  found 
E.    P.,    17-19;     helps    conduct    E.    P., 
25-34;    deprecates  attack  on  Jeflferson, 
36;    death,  30. 
Hamilton,  Philip,  killed  in  duel,  28 
Hammond,  Charles,  defends  free  speech, 

148 
Hampton  Roads  Conference,  314 
Hancock,  Winfield  S.,  for  Presidency,  437 
Hapgood,  Isabel,  contributes,  560 
Hapgood,  Hutchins,  577 
Hapgood,    Norman,    reporter,    527,    528, 

550,  552.  577 
Harper,  Mayor  James,  202 
Harpers,  publishers,  125,  219,  417 
Harper's      Weekly,      on     reconstruction, 
327S.;     on    Greeley,    399;     on    Mug- 
wump  movement,   460;     on  the   "New 
Tammany,"  479,  480 
Harris,  Joel  Chandler,  554 
Harrison,  W.  H.,  E.  P.  attacks,  173,  174 
Harrison,  Benjamin,  468 
Harte,  Bret,  on  staff,  414 
Hartford  Convention,  57,  58 
Harvey,  W.  H.,  497ff. 
Haswell,  Chas.  H.,  on  Central  Park,  193 
Havemeyer,  Mayor,  401 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  E.  P.  upon,  221; 

upon  Bryant,  358 
Hay,  John,  407,  532,  569 
Hayes,   Rutherford  B.,  362;    E.  P.  sup- 
ports, 402-405;    reads  E.  P.,  454;    Na- 
tion on,  4SQ. 
Hearth  and  Home,  412,  414 
Headley,  J.  T.,  217 
Headlines,  Civil  War,  323 
Heilprin,  Angelo,  554 
Heilprin,  Michael,  555,  556 
Henderson,  Isaac,  joins  E.  P.,  237,  238, 
340;     Bryant's  loyalty  to,  353;    grows 
rich,  359;  quarrels  with  Nordhoff,  385; 
in     Hayes-Tilden     campaign,     403-405, 
411;    builds  Bryant  building,  412,  420; 
resigns    as    publisher,     420;      struggle 
with    Parke    Godwin,    426-437;      Civil 
War  charges  against,   427,   428;   char- 
acter, 427;  sells   E.  P.,  439,  440 
Henderson,  Isaac,  Jr.,  420,  426 
Henderson,  Senator  John  B.,  334-337 
Hendrick,  Burton  J.,  577 
Hendricks,  M.  M.,  364 
Herald    (weekly    edition   of   E.    P.),   20, 

30,  93 
Herald,  New  York,  founded,  157;  early 
character,  isSff.;  pro-slavery,  171; 
news  enterprise,  184,  188;  supports 
Taylor,  244,  256;  secession  views, 
267-283;  attacks  Lincoln,  286;  and 
Stanton,  290;  and  Lincoln's  Cabinet, 
292;     on    emancipation,    295ff. ;     mob 


threatens,  301;  on  draft,  305;  on 
Draft  Riots,  309;  and  censorship,  321; 
war  maps,  323;  on  reconstruction,  326- 
337f  346,  360;  advertising  in  1865, 
361;  458;    on  Spanish  War,  511 

Hergesheimer,  Joseph,  567 

Hewitt,  Abram  S.,  478,  479 

"Hiawatha"  reviewed,  220 

Hildreth,  Richard,  346 

Hill,  David  B.,  468,  469,  544 

Hoar,  Gen.  Ebenezer,  393 

Hobson,  R.  P.,  514 

Hoffman,  Ogden,  148 

Hogs,  in  New  York,  65,  66 

Holmes,  O.  W.,  lectures  reported,  225; 
quoted,  315,  339 

Holt,  Charles,  25,  95 

Holt,  Henry,  on  Godkin,  545 

Hone,  Philip,   18 

Hone,  Philip,  Jr.,  diary  quoted,  139,  152, 
356 

Hooker,  Gen.  Joseph,  298,  322 

Horse-railways  in  New  York,  192,  372, 
373 

Hosack,  Dr.,  95 

Housing  crisis  of  1864-66,  365ff. 

Howard,  Bronson,  on  staff,  422 

Howe,  Timothy,  237 

Howe,    Julia    Ward,    tribute    to    Bryant, 

339 
Howells,  W.   D.,  applies  for  work,  407; 

novels    reviewed,    417,    557,    558;     on 

Schurz,  448;    on  Godkin,  476,  513,  522, 

543 
Hull's  surrender,  55,  82,  83 
Hunt,  Richard  M.,  architect,  368 
Huntington,  Dr.  W.  R.,  493 
"Hyperion,"  E.  P.  upon,  218 

Independent,  on  reconstruction,  328ff. ; 
and  reading  notices,  430 

Index  Expurgatorius,  Bryant's,  348 

Indian  question,  451 

Internal  improvement  system,  E.  P.  at- 
tacks, 351 

Irving,  Dr.  Peter,  25,  50,  51,  97,   112 

Irving,  Washington,  97-99i  ^07;  his 
books  criticized,  no,  in,  206;  at 
Dickens  dinner,  211;  mentioned,  316, 
338 

Irving,  William,  97 

Italy,  and  Abyssinia,  505 

James,  E.  J.  contributes,  527 

James,  Henry,  books  reviewed,  417,  518, 

523,  557    558 
James,  William,  545 
Jay,  John,   16,  54,  62 
Jay,  William,  contributes,  245,  340 
Jackson,    Andrew,     loi;     supported    for 

Presidency,    131;    administration,    142, 

143- 
Jackson,  H.  H.,  contributes,  325,  410. 
Jefferson,   Thomas,   election  of    1800,    10, 

27;  E.  P.  attacks,  36-43;  death,  89,  90 
Jerome,  Wm.  Travers,  487ff. 
Jewett,   Helen,   murder  of,    180 
Jingoism,  Godkin  attacks,  470-472,  51  iff. 
Johnson,  Andrew,  reconstruction  and  im- 
peachment, 327-337;  Nation  upon,  459 
Job-Printing  Office,  236 
"Jonathan  Oldstyle  Papers,"  97,  98 
Jones's    Wood,    park    scheme    for,     194- 

201 
Journal,  New  York,  and  Bryan  campaign, 

502,  503;    and  Spanish  War,  509-515; 

Godkin   upon,    S49ff. 


586 


INDEX 


Journal  of  Commerce,  New  York,  145, 
15s;  pro-slavery,  171;  opposes  Central 
Park,  199,  200;  supports  Buchanan, 
252,  256;  secession  views,  267-283; 
on  emancipation,  295;  mob  threatens, 
301;  "copperhead"  tendency,  302!?.; 
on  Bryant,  362;  on  Venezuela  affair, 
474 

Journalism,  revolution  in  New  York  in 
thirties,  i54fl. 

Julian,   George  W.,  453 

Kansas,  war    in,    253,    25sff. 

Kansas-Nebraska   bill,    247-250. 

Kean,  Charles,  acting  reviewed,  116- 
ii8,  562 

Kelly,    Boss  John,  477,   478 

Kemble,  Charles  and  Fanny,  their  act- 
ing,   225,    226 

Kendall,  Amos,  censors  mails,  148;  pen- 
alizes  E.   P.,    153 

Kendall,  E.  A.,  212 

Kendall,  G.  W.,  reports  Mexican  War, 
i84fiF. 

Kent,    Judge   William,    340 

King,  Charles,    95,    152,    156,    291 

King,  Edward,    415 

King,  Preston,    243,    247 

King,  Rufus,  13;  contributes,  42,  43, 
45,    52,    54,    60,    106,    131 

Kingsland,    Mayor    A.    C,    197 

Kittredge,   George  L,,  contributes,   559 

Knickerbocker  School,  96,  97 

"Knickerbocker  History,"  advertised  in 
E.  P.,  98,  99 

Kossuth,  visits  America,  206 

Labor,   163-165,  540,  542 

Labor,  Knights  of,  Godkin  attacks,  541, 
542 

Lamont,  Hammond,    577 

Lament,  Thomas  W.,  owner  of  E.  P., 
578 

Lang,   John,    12,    104 

Lanrnan,  Charles,  contributes,  410 

Lansing,  Chancdlor,  disappearance  of, 
162,   163 

Lathrop,  George  Parsons,  Boston  corre- 
spondent,   414,    415 

Laugel,  AuRUste,  558,  560 

Lawrence,    David,   578 

Lea,  Henry  C.,  554.  559 

Learned,  J.  E,,  managing  editor,  527, 
549.    550 

Learoyd,  H.  J.,  577 

Leavitt,    Joshua,    145 

Ledger,   Philadelphia,   362 

Lee,  General    Robert    E.,    298-300;     323 

Lee,  General    Henry,    53 

Leggett,  Wm.,  becomes  assistant  editor, 
134;  made  acting  editor,  138;  violent 
language,  140;  character,  140-142;  last 
days  and  death,  166,  167;  dramatic 
criticism,    225,    346 

Lenox,  James,   364 

Lenox    Library,    364 

Lenox,  Robert,    64,    91 

Lesugg,    Catherine,    106,    107,    115 

Leupp,  Francis  E.,  Washington  corre- 
spondent,   578 

Levermore,  C.  H.,  on  J.  G.  Bennett,  161 

Lewis,  Charlton  M.,  385,  397,  421; 
character   and   career,   422,   423 

Lewis,   Morgan,   yj.,    106 

Lexow,  Clarence,  and  city  reform,  487!!. 

Libel,  Godkin  on,  548,  549 

Liberal    Republican   Movement,    394-400 

Lind,  Jenny,   192 


Lingan,  Gen.  James,  53 

Linn,   Wm.   Alexander,   city   editor,   421, 

449.  450,  527,  549.  550 
Literary   Review,   the,    579 
Littell's  Living  Age,  on  E.  P.,  340 
Loco-foco    movement,    E.    P.    promotes, 

15  iff. ;  vote   169 
Lodge,  Henry  C.,  447;  as  jingo,  471,  47a, 

496,  497,  502,  504 
Log-cabin  campaign,  disgusts  E.  P.,  173- 

174 
Longfellow,  H.  W.,  Bryant's  opinion  of, 

217-220,  225,  408 
Lord,  Rufus  M.,  364 
Lorrilard,    Peter,    364 
Lossing,  B.  J.,  contributes,  414 
Lotteries,   hostility   of   E.   P.   to,   71,   J2, 

Louisiana  Purchase,  E.  P.  upon,  37,  38 

Lounsbury,   T.   R.,   559 

Lovejoy,  Elijah  P.,  murder  of,  171 

Low,   Seth,   494 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  on  Bryant,  217;  Bryant's 
opinion  of,  220,  221;  mentioned,  339, 
389,  442,  448,   469,   521,   523 

Lowry,  E.   G.,   577,  578 

"Lucius  Crassus,"  letters  of,  27 

Ludlow,  Rev.  Mr.,  145,  146 

Lusitania,  sinking  of,  575 

MacAlarney,  Robert  E.,  578 

Macready,  W.  C,  acting  reviewed,  118, 
119;  riot,  226 

MacVeagh,  Wayne,  congratulates  God- 
kin, 493 

Madison,  James,  attacked,  52-59;  E.  P. 
supports,   61;    his   messages,   82,   83 

Madison  Square,  laid  out,  192,  195 

Mahon,  Lord,  and  Sparks  controversy, 
233 

Mail  and  Express,  New  York,  465 

Maine,  destruction  of,  5o8ff. 

Managing  editorship,  creation  of,  421 

Mapleson,  James  Henry,  425,  556 

Marble,  Manton,  302,  312,  382,  390, 
435 

Marcy,  Gov.  W.  M.,  151;  assails  Leg- 
gett, 152 

Mario,  Jessie  White,   342,  559 

Mark  Twain,   on    Schurz,    447 

Marryat,  Capt.,  Frederick,  E.  P.  criti- 
cizes, 208 

Marshall,  John,  E.  P.  attacks,  152 

Martineau,  Harriet,  Bryant's  opinion  of, 
208,  212 

"Martin  Chuzzlewit,"  223 

Mason,  Charles,  edits  E.  P.,   153,  163 

Mather,   Frank  Jewett,  Jr.,   576 

Matthews,  Brander,  contributes,  554 

Maverick,   Augustus,    425 

Maynard,   J.    H.,    467 

Maxwell,  Wm.   H.,  beads  schools,  492 

McKinley,  William,  and  free  silver  cam- 
paign, 499-503;  and  Spanish  War,  505- 
515.  523;    and  Boxer  rebellion,  569 

Meade,  Gen.  George  Gordon,  299,  300 

Means,   David   M.,  on  staff,   527 

Mercantile  Advertiser,  New  York,  93, 
94 

Mercantile  Library,  364 

Metropolitan  Museum,  E.  P.  calls  for, 
364;   enlarged,   493 

Meyer,   Brantz,   correspondent,   317 

Mexico,  war  with,  179,  180;  news  of 
war  with,  183,187;  intervention  under 
Wilson,  573,  574 

Milan  Decree,  40 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  praises  E.  P.,  341 


INDEX 


587 


Minshull,  John,   103 

Minturn  &  Barker,  91 

Missolonghi,  news  of,   80,  81 

Missouri  Compromise,  61 

Mitchell,  Donald  G.,  408 

Mitchill,  Dr.  Samuel  Latham,  64,  95, 
103 

Monell,  Judge  John  J.,  president  Evening 
Post  Company,  420;  inquires  into  busi- 
ness affairs,    433,   434 

Monroe,  James,   39 

Mooney,   William,    79 

Moore,  Thomas,   contributes,    100,    102 

Moore,  John    Bassett,    474 

More,    Paul    Elmer,    576 

Morning  Chronicle,  New  York,  25,  76, 
77,    92 

Morgan,  E.  P.,  251 

Morris,  Clara,    564 

Morris,  George    P.,    100 

Morris,  Gouverneur,  10;  contributes,  27, 
31,   45,    54,    108 

Morse,  S.  F.  B.,  invents  telegraph, 
187-189,  304 

Morton,  Levi  P.,  490,  491 

Moscow,    burning    of,     59,    60 

Moss,    Frank,    and    city    reform,    487ff. 

Motley,  J.    L.,    dismissed   by   Grant,   393 

Mugwump  movement,  459-466 

Mullet,  Abram  B.,  375 

Mulligan  letters,  459-466 

Mulberry   Court   described,   372 

Murray,  Charles  Augustus,  E.  P.  de- 
fends, 208 

Musical  criticism,  421,  449,   565,  566 

Nadal,  E.  S.,  on  newspaper  reviewing, 
415,  416 

Napoleonic  Wars,  34,  39-44.  59.  60; 
news  of,  87,  88 

Napoleon  III,  504 

Nast,  Thomas,  377,  399 

National   Advocate,    New    York,    95,    124 

National- Zeitung,   New   York,   302 

Nation,  New  York,  on  reconstruction, 
327fi.;  on  Liberal  Republican  Move- 
ment, 390-400  passim;  connected  with 
E.  P.,  438ff. ;  political  views,  458,  459; 
influence,  543,  545;  separated  from 
E.  P.,  578 

Neilson,  Adelaide,   564 

Newbern,  attack  on,   321 

Newcomb,  Simon,  contributes,  527,  554 

New  England  Magazine,  criticises  Bry- 
ant,   137 

New    Madrid   earthquake,    82 

"Newspaper    waifs,"    450 

New  Orleans,  battle  of,  84,  85 

New  York  city,  description  in  i8oi, 
63ff. ;  hogs,  6s,  66;  street -cleaning, 
67;  health,  68-70;  morals,  70-72; 
amusements,  72,  73;  transit,  73;  coal 
and  gas,  75,  76;  police,  76;  burials, 
76;  growth  to  1850,  192;  parks,  192- 
201;  crime,  201;  police,  202;  fire  de- 
partment 1840-65,  202-204;  street 
cleaning,  204,  205 ;  corruption  in  fif- 
ties, 205,  206;  and  Draft  Riots,  30off. ; 
growth  after  Civil  War,  364,  365; 
housing  difficulties,  365-371;  health 
after  Civil  War,  369-372;  rapid  tran- 
sit, 372-375;  and  the  Tweed  Ring, 
376-388;  municipal  misgovernment  and 
reform,  476-495;  improvements  under 
Mayor  Strong,  492,  493;  creation  of 
Greater  New  York,  494. 

New   York  Review,    122,   229 


Nichols,   Major  George,  contributes,   318 
Niles,     Nathaniel,     correspondent,      186, 

187 
Noah,   M.   M.,   51,   102,   108,    114;   joins 

Courier  and  Enquirer,    155 
Nordhoff,     Charles,     241,     291;     Draft 

Riots  reported  by,  306-309;  career,  315- 

317;     as     managing     editor,     317-323; 

quarrels    with     Henderson,     385,    421, 

4-29 

Northern  Securities  Case,   571 

Norton,  Charles  Eliot,  340,  449,  458, 
513.  518,  522,  543;    contributes,  559 

Noyes,  Alexander  Dana,  and  free  sil- 
ver campaign,  500-503;  as  financial 
editor,    553 

Nullification,  132,  133 

O'Brien,  James,  384,  387 
O'Conor,  Charles,  230,  231 
Ogden,    RoUo,    503,     523;     as    associate 

editor,     526,     527;     as    editor-in-chief, 

569-578;    resigns,    578 
Ogden,   Wm.    B.,   374 
Olmsted,    F.   L.,   523 
Olney,   Richard  B.,   472ff. 
Opera,  first  in  New  York,   119,   120 
Opdyke,   George,   263,   291,   303,   366 
Orange   Riot  of    1871,   385-387 
"Oregon  Trail,  The"  (Parkman's),  E.  P. 

reviews,    222 
O'Reilly,    Miles,    contributes,    325,    410 
Orders  in  Council,  39,  40;  repealed,  54 
Osborne,    W.    H.,    265,    310 
Osgood,  J.  R.  &  Co.,  417 
Osgood,   Samuel,  contributes,   410 
"Outre-Mer,"  E.  P.  on,  218 

Paine,  Robert   Treat,    21 

Paine,    Robert    Treat,    Jr.,    107,    108 

Paine,  Thomas,    12,   43,    97 

Panama,  seizure  of,  447,  570 

Parkhurst    Rev.    Charles    H.,    486ff. 

Parkman,    Francis,    222,    449,    523,    554 

Parks,    growth    of    in    New    York,    192- 

201 
Park  Theater,  113,  114 
Parsons,  Rev.  Willard,  372 
Parton,   James,   on   J.    G.    Bennett,    159, 

160 
Paulding,  J.   K.,  96,  97,    no,    156;   con- 
tributes, 180;  on  E.  P.,  340 
Payne-Aldrich    Tariff,    572 
Payne,   George  Henry,   578 
Peck,  Harry  Thurston,  quoted,  538 
Pensions  legislation,  E.  P.  opposes,  436, 

468 
Percival,  J.    G.,    in 
Perry,   Lawrence,   577 
Phelps,  Wra.  Walter,  451,  460-466 
Philippines,    E.    P.    opposes    annexation, 

S15-518 
Picayune,  New  Orleans,  184,  280 
Pierce,  Franklin,  E.  P.  supports  in  1852, 

247;  attacks,  248,  249 
Pierpont,  John,    100,    107 
Pinckney,  Charles,  30 
"Pindar,  Peter,"  99,   102 
Pitkin,  Walter  B.,  577 
Pittsburgh   Landing,  battle  of,   318 
Piatt,    T.    C,    490,    491,    494,    502,    509, 

516,  S18 
Poe,  E.  A.,  visits  E.  P.,  190;  216;  E.  P. 

upon,  221,  407,  418 
Police,   New  York,   76;     in  forties,   201, 

203;    under  Tammany,  1885-1895,  487- 

490 


588 


INDEX 


Polk,  James  K.,  E.  P.  supports,  172, 
173,  ^77,  178;    E.  P.  attacks,  244 

Pope,    Gen.   John,   290,   291,    302 

Popular  Science  Monthly,   369 

Populists,    469 

Port  Royal,  capture  of,  318 

Post,    Detroit,    44S 

Postage,  cheaper,  E.  P.  advocates,  351 

Potter,  Bishop  H,  C,  485,  494.  5^6, 
524 

Powderly,  T.  V.,  and  Knights  of  Labor, 
536 

President   and    Little   Belt,    41 

Press,  Philadelphia,  462 

Prize-fights,    449 

Prime,   Nathaniel,    106 

Prospect    Park,    365,    366 

Public    Advertiser,    New    York,    50,    76, 

Public   Library,   E.   P.   asks   for   consoli- 
dated, 364,  36s 
Puckette,   Charles  McD.,   577 
Putnam,  George   Haven,   560 
Putnam,  G.    P.,    368 
Putnam's,   417 
Putnam's  Magazine,   434 

Quay,   Matthew  S.,   502,  516,  537 
Queenstown,    battle   of,    83,    84 
"Quince,    Peter,"    reviewed,    109 

Randall,  S.  J.,  E.  P.  on,  547 

Randolph,  John,  61,   135 

Rapid   Transit,    372ff. 

Raymond,  Henry  J.,  editor  of  the  Times, 
252,  255,  261,  281,  311,  326,  345. 
362,    425 

"Reading-Notices,      430,    431 

Reclus,    Elie,    415,    416 

Reconstruction,   see   Chapter   Fourteen 

Reed,    T.    B.,    496 

Rehan,   Ada,   564 

Reid,   Whitelaw,    326,  411,    532 

Repplier,  Agnes,   contributes,   414 

"Representative  Men"  reviewed,  222 

Republican,  Springfield,  in  campaign  of 
1872,  390-400;  in  Mugwump  move- 
ment, 46off.;  and  Philippines,  515 

Rhett,  R.  B.  317 

Rhinelander,  Wm.    C,   364 

Rhodes,  James  Ford,  quoted,  247,  298, 
306,    443 

Riardon,   W.  L.,  reporter,   5  5 off. 

Riggs,   Caleb  S.,   17 

Riis,    Jacob,    551 

Ripley,  George,  literary  editor  the 
Tribune,    216,    347,    406,    407 

Ripley,  Philip,  war  correspondent,  318 

Robinson,  A.  G.,  war  correspondent, 
SS2 

Roe,  E.  P.,  contributes,  414 

Rogers,   Samuel,  contributes,  99 

Ropes,  John  C,  contributes,   554,   559 

Rose,  John  C,  on  staff,  527 

Roosevelt,  C.  V.  S.,  364 

Roosevelt,  James,  91 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  447;  in  city  poli- 
tics, 478,  479,  486;  Police  Commis- 
sioner, 492,  551;  opinion  of  Journal, 
611;  runs  for  Governor,  516;  on 
way,  537;  E.  P.  opposes  in  1904,  570; 
and  Panama,  570;  his  Presidency,  571; 
and  Taft,  573 

Ross,   Senator  James,    334,    335 

Roslyn,  Bryant  purchases  home  at,  190; 
life  at,  342,  411 

"Rum,  Romanism,  and  Rebellion,"  465 


Russell,    Wm.     H.,    war    correspondent, 

184,  276,   301 
Russian    literature    introduced,    559,    560 

Salvini,  Tommaso,   564 

Soley,   J.    R.,   contributes,    554 

Society    Library,    364 

South   African   War,    505  ^ 

Southern   Literary    Messenger,    criticizes 

Bryant,    137;    J.    R.    Thompson    edits, 

407 
Sparks,     Jared,      Bigelow's     controversy 

with,  231-234 
Spain,  war  with,  506-515 
Specie  resumption,  E.  P.  advocates,  391, 

392,    436 
Speculation,  E.  P.  attacks  era  of,  i3off. 
Sperry,     Watson     R.,     managing    editor, 

368,  408,  409,  413,  414,  426,  431 
Staats-Zeitung,       New      York,      opposes 

Pierce,     249;     on    secession,     272-283; 

a  copperhead  sheet,  302 
Stanton,    Secretary,    322,    331-334 
Stedman,    E.    C,    318,    407;    contributes, 

410,    411,    414 
Steffens,     Lincoln,     reporter,     529,     530, 

SSoff.,    577 
Stephen,   Leslie,  contributes,   558 
Stephens,  Alexander   H.,   314 
Stephens,  John  L.,  191,  214 
Stewart,    Alexander,    64 
Stockton,  Frank  R.,  408 
Stoddard,    R.    H.,   contributes,    324,    339, 

408,  411,  418 
Stoddard,  Mrs.    R.    H.,   contributes,    325 
Stoddard,  W.   O.,   contributes,   414 
Stone,    Col.    Wm.    L.,     108,     126,     128, 

404 
Straus,   Nathan,  490 
Street-cleaning,    in    fifties,    204,    205 
Strong,  Wm.   M.,  and  city  reform,  491- 

493 
Strunsky,   Simeon,   576-578 
Subways,  movement  for,  372ff 
Sub-treasury    system,    351 
Sumner,  Charles,   friend   of   E.   P.,    231, 

242,    285,    286,    340,    393 
Sumner,   Wm.    Graham,   contributes,    559 
Sun,   Baltimore,    in    Mexican   War,    184, 

185 
Suri,    New   York,   founded,    157;   circula- 
tion  in    i860,    268;    in    1865,    326;    on 

reconstruction,   326-337;  advertising  in 

1865,   61;   on  Tweed  Charter,   382;   on 

Greeley,   399;   in  Mugwump  campaign, 

4645.;    and   Cleveland,   466;     and   free 

silver,    502,    503,    535;     character    as 

newspaper  under  Dana,  546-548,  551 
Sweeney,    Peter    B.,    and    Tweed    affair, 

376-388 
Swords,    T.    and    J.,    64,    91 
Sykes,    McCready,   quoted,    542 
Sagasta,      Premier,     and     Cuban     War, 

Si2ff 
Safe-deposit   vaults,   first   in   New   York, 

365 
Sainte-Beuve   contributes   to   E.   P.,    239, 

240 
Salisbury,    Lord,    and    Venezuela    affair, 

472ff. 
"Salmagundi  Papers,"^  97 
Sands,  Joshua,     11,     17 
Sands,  Robert,    128,     134 
Santiago  campaign,   514 
Santo    Domingo,    annexation    attOTOpted, 
^  392,     393.     395.     447,     $04 
Sargent,   Winthrop,    109 


INDEX 


589 


Sawyer,    Charles    Pike,    sporting    editor, 

S66 
Scnurz,  Carl,  285,  286;  and  Liberal 
Republican  movement,  394-400;  be- 
comes editor-in-chief,  438ff.;  career, 
441-445;  character,  445-448;  as  editor, 
448-457,  463,  485;  on  Spanish  War, 
513;  on  Philippines,  515,  568,  569 
Schieffelin,    Wm.    J.,    and    city    reform, 

48s 
Scott,  Francis    M.,    484 
Scott,    Winfield,    in    Mexican   War,    184- 
186;  E.  P.  opposes  for  President,  247 

Sedgwick,  A.  G.,  as  managing  editor, 
423,  424,  431-433;  as  associate  editor, 
461,    506,    525,    526. 

Sedgwick,  Catharine,     contributes,     233 

Sedgwick,  Henry  D.,  121,  123,  129; 
helps  edit  E.  P.,  153,  164;  con- 
tributes,   172,    176,    178,    210 

"Seaside  and  Fireside,"  Longfellow's, 
reviewed,  219 

"Seventh  of  March  Speech,"  Webster's, 
245,    246 

Seward,  Wm,  H.,  155,  261-263;  in  Lin- 
coln's Cabinet,  277,  278;  a  "conserva- 
tive," 285,  290,  294 

Seymour,  Horatio,  304,  306,  334,  390 

"Shakespeare  Gallery,"   112 

Sherman   Silver   Act,   468,   496,   499 

Sherman,   Stuart   P.,   on   staff,   577 

Sherman,  W.  T.,  302,  310,  313,  318, 
319.   321 

Shipping   news,   90,   91 

Sickles,  Gen.  Daniel,  392 

Sigourney,   Mrs.,   107 

Simms,  Wm.  Gillmore,  191,  407 

Simpson,   Manager,    102,    104 

"Sketch    Book,"    reviewed,    no 

Slocum,    Henry    W.,    374 

Smith,    Gerrit,    339 

Slavery,  rise  of  the  question,  i45flf., 
i7off.;    in    1850-1860,    242-283 

Taft,  William  Howard,  E.  P.  supports 
in   1908,   571;   his   Presidency,   571-573 

Tallmadge,  Senator  Nathaniel  P.,  on 
free    speech,    170 

Tappan,  Lewis  and  Arthur,  abolition- 
ists,   145,    146,    155 

Tammany,  79,  205,  206;  and  Tweed 
Affair,  364-388;  Godkin's  war  upon, 
476-495 

Taney,  Chief  Justice  Roger  B.,  attacked, 

254 
Tanner,   Corporal,   536 
Tariff  policy  of  E.  P.,   34,   129-131,   175, 

228,  229,  361,  362,  391,  436,  468-470, 

Taylor,  Gen.  Zachary,  in  Mexican  War, 
184-186;  E.  P.  opposes  for  President, 
243;    funeral,  192 

Taylor,  Bayard,  407,  417 

Telegraph   introduced,    187-189 

Telegraphers'  strike  of  1883,  455,  456 

Tenure  of  Office  Act,  E.  P.  opposes, 
331-334 

Texas,  annexation  opposed,   175-179 

Thayer,  William  Roscoe,  contributes,  414 

Thayer,  W.  S.,  Washington  correspond- 
ent,   242,    256,    315,    342 

"Thirty  Years'  View,"  published  in 
E.   P.,   235,   250 

Thomas,  Gen.   George  H.,  314 

Thomas,  A.   E.,   577 

Thomas,  Theodore,    365 

Thompson,  Captain,  in  duel  with  Cole- 
man,   48 


Thompson,  Jacob,    254 

Thompson,  John  R.,  literary  editor,  353, 

354,   407-411 
Tilden,  Samuel  J.,  friendship  with  Bige- 
low,    228-231,    251;     opposes    Lincoln, 
265,   266;     a   "copperhead,"   304;     and 
Tweed  Affair,  383-388,  401;  as  Gover- 
nor,   401,    402;    candidate    for    Presi- 
dency, 402-405,  440 
Tillman,   Ben,   499,   500 
Tilton,  Theodore,  328,  334,  412 
Times,   Brooklyn,   on    Bryant,    362 
Times,   New     York,     supports     Fremont, 
251,      252;       slavery      attitude,      255; 
Seward    organ,    26off. ;    264;    view    of 
secession,     267-283     passim;     criticises 
Lincoln's   Cabinet,   292;    "niggerhead," 
305;    and   peace,    311;   war   censorship, 
321;   circulation   in    1865,    326;    on   re- 
construction,    326-337;     360;     exposes 
Tweed,       384-388;       supports       Grant, 
39off.;     attacks     Tilden,     40  iff.;     422; 
431,     436,     454,     458;      in     Mugwump 
movement,  46off.;  and  Tammany,  486; 
535- 
"Tom    Sawyer"    reviewed,   417. 
Tompkins,  Daniel  D.,  61 
Towse,  J.   Ranken,  on  Bryant,  355,   356, 
357;    on  Bryant's  imperfect  control  of 
E.    P.,    403;    on    John    R.    Thompson, 
410;     becomes     dramatic    editor,     421, 
426;  on  Charlton  Lewis,  423;  on  W.  G. 
Boggs,    431;    exposes    Van    Nort,    432, 
433;   as   dramatic   editor,   562-565. 
Tracy,    Gen.    B.    F.,   494 
Tribune,   New  York,  foimded,    160;   sup- 
ports   Zachary    Taylor,    173;     supports 
Fremont,    251,    252,    260;      for    Bates 
in     i860,    261;     264;    views    of    seces- 
sion,   267-283;    on    emancipation,    294; 
criticises  Lincoln,  297;  a  "niggerhead" 
sheet,   305;     and  censorship,   321,   322; 
on  reconstruction,  326-337  passim;  342; 
business    history    in    Civil    War,    359, 
360;    advertising    in    1865,    361;    takes 
over   Fresh  Air  Fund,  372;   on  Tweed 
Charter,    382;    in    campaign    of     1872, 
39off. ;  436,  445;    in  campaign  of  1884, 
462-466;    and    Bryan    campaign,     502, 
503 
Tribune,    Chicago,    280,    290,    390,    393, 

394.  462 
Trollope,  Anthony,  Bryce  upon,  556,  557 
TroUope,  Mrs.,   181;  E.  P.  defends,  208, 

209 
Troup,    Robert,    11,    14,    17,   62 
Trumbull,   Lyman,   285,   334 
Trusts,   539 

Tupper,  Martin  F,,  223,  355 
Tweed,  W.  M.,  emerges,  206;  his  career, 

376-388 
Typhus    in    New    York,    37off. 
Tyler,  President,  E.  P.  attacks,   175,   176 

"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"   249 

Union,  Brooklyn,  412 

Union    League    Club,    382 

Union,  Washington,   248 

Unions,  Trade,  defended  by  E.   P.,   164, 

165 
United    States   Bank,   hostility   of   E.   P. 

to,    131,    142,    143,    168 
United   States   Review,    123 

Van  Buren,  John,    247,    250,    339,    362 
Van  Buren,   Martin,  on  JS.  P.  tariff  pol- 
icy, 130;  befriends  Leggett,  167;  E.  P. 
supports,    169,    170;    on    slavery,    172, 


590 


INDEX 


Van  Buren,  Martin — Continued 

174;     renomination     asked,     175,     176, 
182;    supported  in  1848,  243,  247 

Vanderbilt,  Commodore,     94 

Vanderbilt,  W.    H.,    336 

Van  Wyck,  Augustus,    516 

Van  Wyck,  Robert,    494,    510 

Varick,    Richard,    11,    17,    45,    51,    54 

Vauxhall,    112 

Veiller,    Bayard,    577 

Venezuela    affair,    470-475 

Verplanck,  Gulian  C,  no,  121,  130; 
disagrees  with  B.  P.,   148,  216,   338 

Vicksburg,   capture  of,   300,   309 

Victoria,    Queen,    181,    182 

Villard,  Henry,  Civil  War  correspondent, 
332;  purchases  B.  P.,  438;  his  career, 
440,  441;  relations  with  Schurz,  453, 
454,  522;  and  B.  P.  finances,  566;  his 
unselfishness,  567 

Villard,  Mrs.  Henry,  her  ownership,  567 

Villard,  O.  G.,  interviews  Bigelow,  237; 
joins  staff,  576;  as  one  of  the  editors, 
577;  president  of  Bvening  Post  Com- 
pany, 578;    sells  B.  P.,  578. 

"Voices  of  the  Night,"  E.  P.  on,  218 

Wade,  Benjamin,  and  reconstruction, 
328;    and    impeachment,    333ff- 

Wadsworth,    Gen.    James,    286,    289,    304 

Wagner,  Richard,  H.  T.  Finck  upon, 
565,  566 

Walker's  Filibusterers,  503 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russell,  contributes,  558 

Wallack's  Theater,  564 

Wallack,  James   W.,    106,    115,    564 

Wallack,  Lester,    564 

Ware,    Mrs.    William,    179 

Waring,    Col.    George   E.,   492 

War  of  1812,  JS.  P.  opposes,  44ff-;  views 
of,    82-87. 

Warner,  Arthur,  578 

Warner,  Charles  Dudley,  on  E.  P.,  340; 
on   Nation,    543 

Washburne,   Elihu,    392 

Waterloo,  news  of,   89 

Watterson,  Henry,  35,  434,  435 

"We  Are  Coming,  Father  Abraham," 
published  by  E.  P.,   325 

Webb,  James  Watson,  character  as  edi- 
tor,  154,  224 

Webster,  Daniel,  52,  89;  B.  P.  charac- 
terizes, 144;  tariff  stand  condemned, 
168;   on   Compromise  of    1850,   244-247 

Webster,  Noah,  13,  14,  20;  Dictionary 
reviewed,    no 

Weed,  Thurlow,  95,  i49.  168,  261,  356, 
378,   428 

Weeks,  Capt.   Seaman,   106 

Welles,  Gideon,  contributes,  242;  in  Lin- 
coln's Cabinet,  277,  278;  a  "radical," 
285;    290;    on    Henderson,    427,    428 

Wellington,    Lord,    88,    89 

Wells,  David  A.,  391,  394,  399;  trustee 
of  B.  P.,  444;  mentioned,  524 

Wells,  John,  friend  to  Coleman,  15-17, 
23.  29,  32,  52,  97,  112,  114 


Weyler,  in  Cuba,  506,   507 

Westervelt,  Mayor  Jacob,  opposes  Cen- 
tral    Park,     199,    200 

Westliche  Post,  St.  Louis,  445 

Wharton,  Edith,  567 

Wheaton,  Henry,  95 

Whiting,  James    R.,    374 

Whiting,  Newton  F.,  financial  editor, 
424,     42s 

Whitman,  Walt,  on  Bryant,  217;  con- 
tributes, 224 

White,  Horace,  337;  and  Liberal  Repub- 
lican movement,  390-400;  becomes  as- 
sociate editor,  438ff. ;  career,  443,  444; 
trustee  of  B.  P.,  444,  461;  and  war 
upon  Tammany,  481;  and  fight  against 
free  silver,  496-503;  524;  editor-in- 
chief,  368,  569 

Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  Bryant  upon, 
221,  239;  contributes,  414 

Wilder,  Dr.  A.  P.,  Albany  correspondent, 
346 

Wilmot  Proviso,  JS.  P.  supports,  247,  351. 

Williams,  Walter,   318 

Williams,    William    F.,    421,    425,    426 

Willis,  H.  Parker,  577 

Willis,  N.  P.,  182,  227 

Wilson,  Gen.    James    Grant,    358 

Wilson,  Woodrow,  contributes,  454; 
B.  P.  supports  in  19 12  and  19 16,  570; 
his    Presidency,    573,    574 

Wines,  E.  C,  contributes,  423 

Winona   Speech,  Taft's,   572 

Wise,   Gov.   Henry  A.,   253,   327 

Wolcot,    Dr.    John,   contributes,    99 

Wolcott,  Oliver,  13,  14;  contributes,  27, 
31 

Wolfe,  John  D.,  364 

Wood,    Fernando,    275,    301-306 

Woodberry,  George  E.,  contributes,  554, 
559 

Woodford,  Gen.  Stewart  L.,  515,  524 

Woodworth,  Samuel,   100,   105,    107 

Woolsey,  W.  W.,  11,  17;  contributes, 
31 

World,  New  York,  views  of  secession, 
267-283;  attacks  Lincoln,  287;  and 
Lincoln's  Cabinet,  292;  on  Emancipa- 
tion, 295;  "copperhead,"  3oiff. ;  on 
draft  riots,  308;  wants  war  stopped, 
312;  on  reconstruction,  326-337;  at- 
tacks Bigelow  and  Thayer,  346,  356; 
advertising  in  1865,  361;  on  Bryant, 
362;  on  Tweed  Charter,  382;  supports 
Seymour,  390;  on  Greeley's  candidacy, 
398-400;  on  Henry  Villard,  453,  454; 
465;  on  Venezuela,  474;  and  Tam- 
many, 485,  486;  and  free  silver,  502, 
503;  and  Spanish  war,  509-515;  E.  L. 
Godkin    upon,    549ff. 

World  War,  the,  574-576 

Wright,  Fanny,  126 

Wright,  H.  J.,  on  Godkin,  525-529  pas- 
sim; as  city  editor,  55off. ;  becomes 
editor   of    Commercial  Advertiser,    577 

Wright,    Silas,    229,    258 


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